IVIC  RIGHTEOU^NE^^ 
"  ANP    QYIQ  PRIDE 


NEWTON   MARSHALL  HALL 


:5U 


GIFT  OF 

45= 


-«^.J>^»^J^ 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/civicrigliteousneOOhallricli 


CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 
AND  CIVIC  PRIDE 


BY 
NEWTON  MARSHALL  HALL,  D.D. 

Minister  of  the  North  Congregational  Church 

Springfield,  Massachusetts 

Member-at-Large  of  the  Springfield  Board 

of  Education 

Author  of  *The  Bible  Story,"  etc. 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1914 


^v^ 

> 


c.*.^ 

■3-^^^ 
^   Vv^ 


V  >J     


Copyright,  1914 
Sherman.  French  6*  Company 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  BELOVED  WIFE 

LOUISE 

WHOSE  LIFE  IS  THE  INSPIRATION  OF  MY  LIFE 

This  is  the  same  voice:  can  thy  soul  know  change? 
Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  realms  of  help ! 
.  .  .  That  still,   despite   the  distance   and   the   dark, 
What  was,  again  may  be:  some  interchange 
Of  grace,  some  splendor  once  thy  very  thought. 
Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile." 


fifid-Cion. 


PREFACE 

The  problems  which  are  the  most  vital  and 
most  interesting  to  the  great  mass  of  our  peo- 
ple are  civic  problems.  National  questions  are 
more  remote  and  unreal.  Life  centers  in  the 
city;  its  governmental  functions  concern  the 
family,  the  individual,  our  own  flesh  and  blood, 
directly.  The  education  of  children,  the  right- 
eous administration  of  the  business  of  the  com- 
munity, communal  rights,  the  preservation  of 
law  and  order,  the  housing  of  the  population, 
the  care  of  the  poor,  the  suppression  of  vice, 
the  treatment  of  the  alien,  the  inter-relation  of 
men  and  women,  all  these  matters  and  many 
others  come  home  to  us  with  directness  and 
force.  These  questions  are  absorbing  the  at- 
tention of  very  many  thoughtful  men  and 
women;  they  are  the  concern  of  such  great  or- 
ganizations as  the  National  Municipal  League 
and  the  National  Economic  League.  Much  lit- 
erature is  in  existence  upon  the  technical  and 
administrative  aspects  of  these  problems ;  very 
little  has  been  written  upon  the  moral  side. 

Yet  these  questions  are  all  at  bottom,  moral 
questions.     They  cannot  be  settled  by  schemes 


PREFACE 

and  projects,  however  well  thought  out,  nor  by 
model  city  charters,  nor  by  the  referendum,  nor 
by  any  other  similar  device  alone.  The  final 
factor  is  the  human  factor,  the  redeemed  man  in 
the  redeemed  city,  and  no  solution  is  possible 
which  does  not  take  into  consideration  the 
teaching  of  the  Master  of  Men.  The  sermons 
contained  in  this  volume  were  prepared  with 
this  belief  profoundly  in  view.  They  aim  to 
discuss  civic  questions  from  the  old  prophetic 
standpoint  modified  by  the  vision  of  Jesus  as  it 
must  be  worked  out  in  terms  of  every  day  living. 
At  the  time  they  were  delivered  they  were 
widely  quoted  by  the  daily  press.  And  they 
are  now  printed  upon  the  insistence  on  the  part 
of  many  friends  that  they  will  be  helpful  to 
others  than  those  to  whom  they  were  immedi- 
ately addressed. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I     Civic  Righteousness  and  Civic  Pride        1 


II 

America:  the  Melting  Pot   . 

16 

III 

Civic    Responsibility 

29 

IV 

The    Battle    against    Evil    . 

41 

V 

The  City  of  the  Blind   .... 

53 

VI 

The     Public     Schools     and     Civic 

Righteousness 

66 

VII 

The  Ideal  Citizenship      .... 

81 

VIII 

The  Saloon:  a  Public  Nuisance     . 

94 

IX 

Civic  Rights  and  Civic  Duties   . 

108 

X 

The   Follies  op   Civic  Adolescence 

121 

XI 

A  Righteous  Machine      .... 

134 

XII 

The  City  of  Friends 

146 

XIII 

The  City  and  the  Nation    . 

159 

XIV 

Woman  and   the   Ultimate   Democ- 

racy         

171 

XV 

The  Cfty  of  Visions 

184 

CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  CIVIC 
PRIDE  1 

"  A  citizen  of  no  mean  city." —  Acts  21 :  39. 

In  a  book  which  pulses  with  human  interest 
from  cover  to  cover  there  is  no  more  intensely 
dramatic  scene  than  that  in  which  Paul  defied 
the  mob  in  Jerusalem.  He  is  borne  by  the  tide 
of  shouting  humanity  up  the  steps  of  the  cas- 
tle, protected  by  the  soldiers  of  the  imperial 
guard.  There  he  is  questioned  by  the  captain, 
who  asks  him  if  he  is  not  a  certain  Egyptian 
outlaw  who  has  been  causing  trouble  in  the 
country  districts.  Then  stands  up  Paul  in  his 
pride  and  flashes  back  his  royal  reply,  "  I  am 
a  man  which  am  a  Jew  of  Tarsus,  a  city  of  Ci- 
licia,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city."  Yes,  he  was 
a  Jew,  with  all  the  exclusive  racial  instincts  of 
the  Israelite,  with  an  inborn  hatred  and  distrust 
of  all  things  foreign,  a  Jew  with  a  peculiar  re- 
ligious mission,  and  yet  there  flames  out  this 

1  Preached  on  the  occasion  of  the  fiftieth  anniversary 
of  the  incorporation  of  the  City  of  Springfield. 
1 


2         '     CIVIC  'K161ITEOUSNESS 

spirit  of  civic  pride,  this  glory  in  the  distinc- 
tively Roman  city  of  his  birth.  Why  was  he 
proud  of  it?  One  reason  was  because  the  an- 
cient city  of  Tarsus  was  proud  of  itself.  It 
was  a  Roman  metropolis  with  all  the  distinc- 
tions and  privileges  which  the  name  implied. 
It  was  beautifully  situated.  The  broad  River 
Cyndus,  breaking  through  a  cleft  in  the  Taurus 
Mountains,  fell  in  a  white  cascade  to  the  plain, 
and  flowed  clear  and  cold  from  its  mountain 
snows  through  the  city.  At  evening  the  people 
used  to  gather  in  their  roof  gardens  on  the 
housetops  to  watch  the  setting  sun  as  it  turned 
the  snowy  summits  of  the  mountain  chain  into 
rose  and  filled  the  valley  with  golden  mist.  But 
beauty  of  situation  was  not  the  only  source  of 
civic  pride.  Tarsus  was  a  rich  and  influential 
centre  of  trade,  and  it  maintained  its  impor- 
tance by  the  most  lavish  municipal  expenditure, 
—  by  what  we  moderns  call  enterprise  and  push. 
When  Paul  as  a  boy  wandered  down  to  the 
wharves  to  see  the  sights,  and  to  listen  to  the 
sounds  of  the  sailors  and  the  ships,  and  to 
breathe  that  indefinable  atmosphere  of  the  sea 
which  is  so  fascinating  to  a  growing  lad,  he 
could  not  fail  to  admire  those  great  stone  basins 
and  quays  which  made  Tarsus  a  seaport  in 
spite  of  the  treacherous,  shifting  sands  of  the 
rapid  river.  The  Roman  was  a  great  builder 
and    his    engineering    stood.     There    was    no 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  3 

shoddy  about  it.  A  traveller  in  northern  Af- 
rica told  me  that  he  found  Roman  baths  still 
intact,  the  blocks  of  stone  so  cunningly  fitted 
together  that  they  required  no  cement.  We 
have  yet  to  equal  the  engineering  of  the  old  Ro- 
man aqueducts  which  spanned  the  valleys  with 
graceful  arches  and  brought  an  unlimited  sup- 
ply of  pure  water  from  the  hills  for  the  use  of 
the  humblest  citizen,  playing  everywhere  in 
beautiful  public  fountains,  so  that  in  Rome  you 
could  not  go  out  of  the  sound  of  running  wa- 
ter. In  the  science  of  road  building  we  are 
far  behind  the  Roman,  whose  military  high- 
ways, stretching  to  the  boundaries  of  the  em- 
pire, were  the  railroads  of  ancient  times.  In 
municipal  art  and  architecture  we  are  only  just 
beginning  to  abandon  the  grotesque  and  hide- 
ous, and  to  imitate,  but  only  in  stone  and  brick, 
that  glorious  beauty  which  the  ancient  city  re- 
vealed in  marble.  All  this  strength  and  beauty 
and  genuineness  of  construction,  this  power 
which,  however  arbitrary  it  might  be,  at  least 
wrought  with  magnificent  energy  for  the  good 
of  the  people,  must  have  deeply  impressed  Paul, 
who  loved  strength  and  hated  a  sham. 

All  the  sights  and  sounds  which  make  up  the 
life  of  a  proud  city  had  their  effect  upon  the 
growing  boy.  The  great  bazars  with  their  rich 
display  of  goods ;  the  caravans,  coming  perhaps 
from  India,  laden  with  spices  and  bales  of  curi- 


4  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ously  woven  cloths ;  the  religious  processions 
filling  the  streets  with  sudden  splendor;  the 
march  of  a  Roman  legion;  and  above  all  that 
indescribable  something  which  makes  a  city- 
bred  man  love  the  very  streets  and  houses  and 
noises  of  the  city, —  all  this  was  in  Paul's  mind 
when  he  said,  "  I  am  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city." 

There  is  a  divine  providence  in  the  inevitable 
drift  of  humanity  cityward.  It  is  a  cheap 
sophistry  which  says  that  "  God  made  the  coun- 
try and  man  made  the  city."  God  implanted 
the  instinct  which  leads  men  to  gather  in  social 
groups,  as  the  instinct  of  the  bird  leads  it  to 
follow  the  journeying  sun.  As  humanity  is 
constituted,  the  city  is  inevitable.  The  germ 
of  Jerusalem  was  in  the  wandering  tent  of 
Abraham.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers  carried  the 
charters  of  all  the  cities  of  the  American  conti- 
nent in  the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower."  Until 
you  can  blot  out  social  desires  and  communal  in- 
stincts, the  gathering  of  humanity  in  cities  is 
as  inevitable  as  the  recurrence  of  day  and 
night. 

There  is  a  fascination  about  the  city  for 
many  minds  which  cannot  be  explained  upon 
sociological  grounds.  That  feeling  was  per- 
haps never  better  expressed  than  in  these  words 
of  Charles  Lamb: 

"  I  have  passed  all  my  days  in  London,  until  I 
have  formed  as  many  and  as  intense  local  attach- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  6 

ments  as  any  of  your  mountaineers  can  have  done 
with  dead  nature.  The  lighted  shops  of  the  Strand 
and  of  Fleet  Street,  the  innumerable  trades,  trades- 
men, and  customers,  coaches,  wagons,  playhouses, 
.  .  .  the  crowds,  the  very  dirt  and  mud,  the  sun 
shining  upon  houses  and  pavements,  the  jewel 
shops,  the  old  book  stalls,  coffeehouses,  the  steam 
of  soup  from  kitchens,  the  pantomimes  (London 
itself  a  pantomime  and  a  masquerade),  all  these 
things  work  themselves  into  my  mind  without  the 
power  of  satiating  me.  The  wonder  of  these  sights 
impels  me  into  night  walks  about  her  crowded 
streets,  and  I  often  shed  tears  in  the  motley  Strand 
from  fulness  of  joy  at  so  much  life." 

The  lover  of  green  fields  and  running  brooks 
may  not  appreciate  this  feeling;  the  colors  of 
the  picture  may  seem  rather  dingy  and  dubious, 
but  the  fascination  of  London  has  existed  not 
only  for  Lamb,  but  for  Johnson,  and  Gold- 
smith, and  Dickens,  and  Thackeray,  and  a  host 
of  England's  choicest  spirits. 

We  are  told  by  political  economists  that  men 
are  governed  wholly  by  utilitarian  motives. 
But  men  stay  in  the  city  to  their  own  obvious 
disadvantage.  The  offer  of  higher  wages,  bet- 
ter food,  cleaner  dwellings,  has  no  effect  upon  a 
certain  class  of  city-dwellers.  They  love  the 
excitement  and  companionship  of  the  city  bet- 
ter than  wide  landscapes  devoid  of  houses  and 
men,  or  charming  country  roads  with  birds 
carolling  in  the  trees,  but  no  electric  cars  and 


6  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

loaded  drays  and  fire-engines.  They  cannot 
see  how  anyone  can  desire  to  live  in  a  house 
without  the  social  opportunities  of  a  fire-es- 
cape, and  the  nearest  chance  of  gossip  a  mile 
and  a  half  away.  Perhaps  the  time  may  come 
when  some  economic  Moses  will  lead  a  new  exo- 
dus from  the  Egypt  of  the  great  cities,  but  for 
the  present  we  must  face  the  stubborn  fact 
that  the  attraction  of  the  city  is  irresistible  to 
great  masses  of  humanity. 

There  is,  indeed,  another  side  to  the  question. 
There  are  influences  entirely  rational  and  legit- 
imate which  lead  men  to  the  cities  and  keep 
them  there.  While  the  country  has  unques- 
tionably bred  and  nourished  great  men,  the  city 
has  furnished  the  field  for  the  exhibition  of  their 
talents.  The  bells  of  Bow  have  called,  "  Turn 
back,  turn  back,"  to  more  than  one  Dick  Whit- 
tington,  who  has  become  "  thrice  Lord  Mayor 
of  London."  Daniel  Webster  was  nothing  but 
a  green  country  barrister  as  long  as  he  re- 
mained among  his  native  New  Hampshire  hills. 
It  was  necessary  for  him  to  become  acclimated 
as  a  citizen  of  Boston  before  he  could  enter 
upon  a  career  of  national  greatness. 

The  desire  for  superior  advantages, —  edu- 
cational, social,  religious,  commercial, —  for  all 
the  privileges  and  opportunities  which  the 
larger  communities  aff^ord,  furnishes  a  strong 
and  perfectly  valid  incentive  to  men  to  seek  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  7 

city.  All  these  influences,  combined  with  mod- 
ern methods  of  manufacture  and  distribution, 
have  resulted  in  the  unprecedented  drift  to  the 
cities.  Country  districts  are  being  depopu- 
lated. The  smaller  communities  are  being  deci- 
mated. The  marching  columns  of  humanity 
are  converging  upon  the  city.  It  inevitably 
follows  that  the  interest  in  the  great  drama  of 
human  life  is  also  centered  in  the  city.  It 
means  that  the  great  battles  for  human  freedom 
are  to  be  fought  out  in  the  city.  What  has 
been  true  of  Paris  for  centuries  will  be  increas- 
ingly true  of  all  our  American  cities :  the  prob- 
lem of  the  nation  will  be  the  problem  of  the  city. 
What  is  true  of  the  greatest  cities  is  also  true 
of  other  and  smaller  communities.  The  cen- 
trifugal social  force  which  is  at  work  will  result 
in  the  formation  not  of  suns  only,  but  of  plan- 
etary systems  as  well.  There  are  many  nuclei 
of  attraction,  and  there  will  be,  during  the  next 
half  century,  hundreds  of  communities,  ranging 
from  Greater  New  York  to  cities  of  ten  thou- 
sand inhabitants,  which  will  be  constantly  grow- 
ing at  the  expense  of  other  communities.  They 
are  all  of  the  same  general  type;  they  are  all 
under  the  compulsion  of  the  same  stupendous 
forces ;  they  are  moving  toward  a  common  des- 
tiny. The  great  fact  which  cannot  be  ignored 
is  the  fact  of  the  centralization  of  human  life 
in   limited   areas.     Humanity,   rich   and   poor, 


8  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

will  continue  to  hive  and  swarm  in  the  city. 
Here  is  the  problem,  and  we  must  face  it.  It  is 
a  problem  which  cannot  be  eliminated;  it  must 
be  solved.  One  aspect  is  dark,  and  sinister, 
and  menacing.  It  may  be  questioned  whether 
human  nature  reaches  any  lower  depths  of  de- 
pravity in  the  city  than  in  the  country,  but 
wickedness  breeds  faster  by  contact,  and  ap- 
palling possibilities  are  open  through  the  multi- 
plication of  the  human  factor.  An  isolated 
criminal  is  bad  enough,  but  a  city  tenement 
house  may  become  a  nursery  of  crime,  a  hotbed 
of  pestilence,  a  festering  plague-spot  of  so- 
cial corruption.  The  city  contains  enough  ex- 
plosive material  of  human  passions  to  wreck 
the  whole  social  fabric.  The  tiger  is  chained  to- 
day. Men  are  at  work.  Prosperity  is  in  the 
air.  But  let  the  conditions  change.  Let  loose 
those  demons  of  hunger  and  hate;  let  the  bal- 
ance tip  ever  so  slightly  toward  discord  and 
anarchy,  and  the  city  will  become  a  storm-cen- 
ter which  may  threaten  destruction  and  disin- 
tegration to  the  whole  nation.  How  are  we  to 
counteract  the  evil  tendencies  and  develop  those 
glorious  possibilities  which  just  as  surely  exist 
in  the  life  of  the  city? 

First,  by  arousing  the  communal  spirit  and 
civic  pride}  by  enlarging  the  vision,  and  raising 
the  ideals  of  every  citizen,  by  opening  the  eyes 
of  men  to  the  opportunities  and  privileges  of 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  9 

citizenship.  If  you  cannot  make  men  go  to 
the  country,  then  you  must  bring  the  beauty 
and  significance  of  the  country  into  the  city,  so 
that  the  child  of  the  slums  may  have  a  vision  of 
green  grass  and  blossoming  flowers  near  its  ten- 
ement; so  that  the  weary  laborer  may  some- 
times catch  the  song  of  birds  above  the  roar  of 
the  city  streets  and  refresh  his  eye  by  the  sight 
of  the  waving  branches  of  trees.  Open  your 
squares  in  the  city  streets !  Tear  down  your 
dingy  walls  !  Let  in  the  light  and  air !  In  the 
name  of  the  God  of  sunshine  and  flowers,  give  to 
the  people  who  must  toil  the  beauty  for  which 
their  souls  crave,  not  at  remote  distances,  but 
next  to  the  factory  and  the  street.  If  our 
American  cities  are  to  be  more  than  storehouses 
for  merchandise,  more  than  mere  herding  places 
for  humanity,  they  must  cultivate  civic  beauty 
and  civic  pride.  Self-respect,  pride  in  ideal 
achievement,  is  the  source  of  all  progress.  In 
order  to  redeem  a  man  morally,  you  must  first 
arouse  his  pride;  you  must  make  him  sensible 
that  he  has  a  manhood  worth  saving.  The 
greatness  of  ancient  Athens  was  based,  not 
upon  commercial  prosperity,  but  upon  a  civic 
pride  which  sacrificed  wealth,  which  was  con- 
tent to  live  in  humble,  perishable  dwellings,  in 
order  that  glorious  piles  of  marble  and  radiant 
statues  might  symbolize  the  eternal  worth  of 
beauty.     The  City  of  the  Seven  Hills  ruled  the 


10  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

world  because  it  made  civic  pride  the  basis  of 
imperial  power,  because  the  humblest  legionary 
fighting  beneath  the  eagles  of  Caesar  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rhine  or  in  the*  far  Eastern  des- 
erts felt  the  power  of  the  great  city  at  his  back. 
Venice,  Star  of  the  Sea,  was  for  generations  the 
centre  of  culture  and  trade  because  civic  pride 
stimulated  ambition  and  kept  her  inviolate  and 
free.  The  development  of  civic  pride  means 
a  development  of  the  consciousness  of  unity, 
the  sense  of  the  mutual  interdependence  of  ev- 
ery citizen,  and  a  consequent  development  of 
the  principles  of  democracy.  We  hear  less  of 
the  idea  that  every  man's  house  is  a  castle  in 
which  he  may  intrench  himself  from  the  world 
and  enjoy  his  individual  accumulations,  and 
more  of  the  idea  that  the  city,  made  resplendent 
and  beautiful  by  the  giving  of  the  many,  is 
every  man's  kingdom. 

Communal  rights  are  not  merely  utilitarian. 
The  city  must  do  more  than  provide  pure  air 
and  well-paved  streets ;  it  must  assist  men  to 
create  a  new  and  a  purer  social  atmosphere;  it 
must  open  the  intellectual  highways  over  which 
the  humblest  and  poorest  of  its  children  may 
walk  to  freedom  if  they  will.  If  there  is  a  prac- 
tical necessity  which  compels  men  to  surrender 
individual  for  civic  rights  in  the  line  of  public 
improvements,  then  there  is  a  moral  necessity 
which  will  sooner  or  later  compel  men  to  sur- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  11 

render  personal  and  selfish  enjoyment  for  the 
intellectual  and  ethical  welfare  of  the  commu- 
nity. 

Today  if  a  man  should  say,  "  I  do  not  use 
your  public  improvements  and  I  will  not  pay 
for*them,"  we  should  reply,  "  You  must  pay  for 
them  whether  you  want  them  or  not,  for  they 
are  for  the  good  of  the  community  of  which  you 
are  an  integral  part."  We  say  this  today ;  to- 
morrow we  shall  say,  "  You  must  help  to  pay 
for  everything  which  will  enrich  and  beautify 
and  enlarge  the  life  of  the  individual,  so  that 
no  child  born  within  the  limits  of  this  proud 
city  of  ours  shall  lack  anything  of  the  highest 
po'ssible  training  or  anything  of  the  highest 
possible  satisfaction  of  the  nobler  instincts  of 
the  nature."  The  power  to  make  that  demand 
and  enforce  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
Christianity.  It  is  not  so  necessary  that  you 
and  I  should  have  a  comfortable  sense  of  our 
own  piety.  Christ  need  not  have  died  for  that ; 
but  to  force  men  to  understand  the  personal 
obligation  of  every  man  to  contribute  to  the 
enlightenment  and  freedom  and  ethical  well- 
being  of  the  whole  community,  that  is  a  triumph 
worth  the  anguish  of  Calvary. 

When  we  realize  how  strong  a  force  is  selfish- 
ness in  the  world,  we  wonder  how  the  broader 
victory  for  humanity  has  been  won.  I  believe 
that  the  joybells  of  Heaven  rang  when  the  first 


la  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

free  school  and  the  first  free  library  were  es- 
tablished. Across  the  front  of  the  public  li- 
brary in  Boston  are  inscribed  these  words,  "  To 
the  people  of  Boston,  from  the  people  of  Bos- 
ton." Marvelous  the  significance  of  those 
words  —  the  self-consciousness  of  a  city  as- 
serting itself  in  visible  form ;  the  enunciation 
of  a  principle  of  giving  which  does  not  impover- 
ish, of  a  self-sacrifice  which  is  a  self-sustain- 
ment  and  a  self-enrichment.  And  under  those 
words  might  well  have  been  carved  that  other 
declaration  out  of  which  they  grew,  "  I  am 
come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  have  it  more 
abundantly." 

There  is  one  more  element  which  is  necessary 
to  the  highest  development  of  the  city.  Be- 
neath civic  pride  must  be  civic  righteousness. 
You  may  make  a  city  as  beautiful  as  you  please^ 
—  make  every  street  a  park,  crown  it  with  pub- 
lic palaces  of  art  and  literature  and  music, — 
unless  righteousness,  and  sobriety,  and  the  fear 
of  God,  and  faith  in  a  future,  are  characteristic 
of  its  people,  it  may  become  a  Circean  sty  of 
filth  and  corruption,  and  it  will  be  consumed 
by  the  fires  of  its  own  wickedness.  In  the  days 
of  the  Renaissance,  Florence  witnessed  the  most 
glorious  revival  of  art  and  architecture  which 
the  world  had  seen  since  the  golden  age  of 
Greece.  But  those  marvelous  creations  in- 
spired by  the  sublime  genius  of  Michael  Angelo, 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  13 

Ghiberti,  Giotto,  Donatello,  Brunelleschi,  could 
not  save  Florence, —  that  Florence  which  ban- 
ished Dante  and  burned  Savonarola,  upon 
which  Michael  Angelo  turned  his  back  in  shame 
and  grief.  "  And  Florence  died,  too,"  says  a 
writer ;  "  for  weary  centuries  lying  motionless, 
with  the  '  Twilight '  and  the  '  Dawn  '  and  the 
'  Night '  and  the  '  Day  '  watching  by  her  ashes 
in  melancholy  splendor."  A  city's  greatness, 
her  continued  prosperity  and  influence,  rests 
upon  her  faithfulness  to  the  high  ideals  of  right- 
eousness and  honor.  To  live  happily  a  people 
must  live  nobly ;  to  live  nobly  a  people  must 
live  righteously. 

There  is  great  danger  today  that  the  growth 
of  civic  opportunities  shall  outstrip  the  spread 
of  civic  righteousness.  The  mighty  problem 
before  us  is  to  lift  men  up  to  an  appreciation  of 
the  privileges  of  American  citizenship,  to  en- 
franchise the  spirit,  to  develop  in  new  genera- 
tions the  characteristics  of  the  fathers.  I  re- 
cently heard  a  prominent  political  leader  plead 
earnestly  for  the  holding  of  office  by  citizens  of 
American  blood.  That  does  not  solve  the  dif- 
ficulty. You  would  not  have  good  government, 
necessarily,  if  every  mayor's  chair  in  the  coun- 
try should  be  occupied  by  a  descendant  of  the 
Puritans.  What  we  must  do  is  to  take  the  chil- 
dren of  alien  birth  and  foreign  tongue,  and  ed- 
ucate them  in  our  public  schools,  and  inspire 


14  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

them  with  lofty  ideals,  and  impress  them  with 
the  principles  of  private  morality  and  public 
virtue  until  they  shall  be  as  fit  to  govern  as  the 
native-bom  American  of  bluest  blood  and  long- 
est lineage.  We  can  have  no  oligarchy  of 
education  and  culture  in  this  country.  We 
must  all  rise  or  fall  together.  The  Springfield 
of  the  future  is  to  be  not  your  Springfield  nor 
my  Springfield  alone,  but  the  Springfield  of  the 
child  of  Italy  and  France  and  Poland  as  well, 
and  its  character  will  depend  upon  the  faithful- 
ness with  which  the  obligation  to  every  citizen 
is  met,  upon  the  measure  of  civic  pride  and  civic 
righteousness  which  is  attained  by  all. 

"  A  citizen  of  no  mean  city !  "  We  can  all 
feel  the  pride  of  Paul  today  in  our  Springfield. 
Radiant  and  beautiful  she  sits  in  her  ancient 
seat  by  her  lordly  river  flowing  to  the  sea.  She 
treasures  sacred  memories  of  loyal  hearts  and 
heroic  service.  The  blood  of  her  valiant  sons 
has  consecrated  the  battlefields  of  the  nation. 
Peace  and  prosperity  are  within  her  gates.  In- 
dustry, intelligence,  and  civic  pride  character- 
ize her  citizens.  Upon  her  escutcheon  there  is 
no  blot  of  shame  in  all  her  long  history.  She 
stands  for  education,  for  breadth  of  vision,  for 
freedom  of  thought,  for  the  faith  of  the  fathers, 
for  the  constitutional  principles  of  liberty, 
equality,  fraternity.     God  bless  her  as  she  en- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  15 

ters  today  upon  a  new  era  of  prosperity  and  in- 
fluence ! 

"  A  blessing  through  the  ages  thus 
Shield  all  thy  roofs  and  towers; 
God  with  the  fathers,  so  with  us, 
Thou  darling  town  of  ours !  " 


II 

AMERICA:  THE  MELTING  POT^ 

And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  last  days,  that  the 
mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  shall  be  established  in  the 
top  of  the  m^ountains,  and  shall  be  exalted  above  the 
hills :  and  all  nations  shall  floio  unto  it. —  Isaiah  3 :  2. 

The  greatest  of  the  prophets  dreamed  of  the 
age  of  universal  brotherhood,  when  the  barriers 
between  people  and  people  should  be  broken 
down,  and  the  nations  should  fuse  and  flow  to- 
gether, drawn  to  Jerusalem  by  a  spiritual  grav- 
itation as  strong  as  that  mighty  call  in  obedi- 
ence to  which  the  rivers  flow  from  the  moun- 
tains to  the  seas.  So  far  as  Jerusalem,  the 
holy  city  of  Israel,  is  concerned  the  prophecy 
will  never  be  fulfilled,  but  it  is  being  fulfilled  in 
America  today,  as  the  peoples  of  every  nation 
are  flowing  together  in  a  mighty  stream,  be- 
neath the  portals  of  the  promised  land.  There 
was  a  time  when  I  felt  pessimistic  and  hopeless 
about  the  problem  of  immigration.  I  feel  so 
no  longer.  I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  very 
grave  aspects  of  this  problem,  that  there  are 

1  Printed  in  "  Immigration,"  December,  1913. 
16 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  17 

serious  questions  which  confront  our  American 
cities  in  relation  to  the  foreign  population,  but 
I  believe  that  these  problems  may  all  be  solved 
if  we  have  patriotism  enough  and  faith  enough. 
I  believe  this,  because  I  believe  that  there  has 
been  from  the  first,  a  divine  providence  in  the 
migration  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth  to  Amer- 
ica. The  same  God-given  impulse  which  sent 
Abraham  out  of  his  own  city  to  found  a  new 
people,  the  same  impulse  which  sent  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  over  the  western  ocean  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  this  Republic,  has  sent  the  rep- 
resentatives of  all  the  old  races  to  become  in- 
tegral parts  of  the  brotherhood  of  humanity 
which  we  are  creating  slowly  and  painfully,  not 
without  sacrifice  and  tears,  in  our  America.  I 
would  not  dare  to  believe  otherwise  than  this. 
I  do  not  believe  that  history  is  merely  a  blind 
fumbling  with  the  keys  of  fate.  I  believe  that 
God  is  visibly  in  it.  This  is  a  part  of  that  eter- 
nal purpose  which  has  run  through  all  the  ages. 
God  intended  this  land  which  we  call  ours  to  be 
the  great  school  of  opportunity  for  the  races. 
In  Milton's  splendid  phrase  it  is  "  the  mansion 
house  of  liberty,"  spacious  enough,  free  enough, 
strong  enough  for  the  working  out  of  all  God's 
problems  for  the  human  race.  Someone  may 
say,  "  this  is  only  a  sentimental  fancy,  drawn 
from  a  false  interpretation  of  an  out^own 
scripture.     The   facts   are  that   causes   purely 


18  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

economical  and  social  send  the  immigrant  to 
America.  He  comes  to  better  himself.  He 
comes  to  seek  higher  wages.  He  is  ignorant, 
coarse  and  dirty.  He  breeds  in  the  slums.  He 
is  a  source  of  contagion,  moral  and  physical. 
He  is  a  peril  in  the  industrial  situation.  He  is 
an  anarchist  and  a  free-thinker,  a  menace  to 
our  free  institutions.  He  should  have  been 
kept  out  of  our  country.  He  is  here,  but  what 
we  are  to  do  with  him  ultimately  seems  a  hope- 
less problem." 

In  reply  to  such  a  pessimistic  attitude  I 
should  say  that  it  is  true  that  the  immigrant 
does  come  to  better  himself  economically  and 
socially,  but  God  can  and  does  use  economic 
and  social  forces  for  the  furtherance  of  his  own 
plans.  He  can  even  make  the  wrath  of  man  to 
praise  him,  and  out  of  the  horror  of  war,  he 
accomplishes  the  long  purposes  of  peace.  The 
immigrant  may  come  to  America  primarily  to 
earn  his  bread  at  a  better  wage,  but  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands  there  is  also  a  spiritual 
motive.  There  is  a  hunger  and  thirst  for  lib- 
erty, there  is  the  desire  for  an  opportunity  not 
only  to  earn  bread,  but  to  obtain  education,  en- 
lightenment, the  chance  to  develop  the  soul  as 
well  as  the  body.  We  have  been  altogether 
wrong  in  our  idea  of  the  class  of  immigrants 
which  the  Old  World  has  been  sending  us. 
These  men  and  women  are  not  as  a  rule  degen- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  19 

erate,  any  more  than  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were 
degenerate.  The  immigrant  is  never  of  degen- 
erate stock;  for  it  requires  initiative  and  thrift 
and  courage  and  faith  to  hear  and  to  obey  the 
call.  God  sifts  the  nations  today  as  he  sifted 
them  of  old  to  provide  the  seed  for  the  planting 
of  the  original  colonies.  Neither  are  the  races 
from  which  these  people  come  degenerate. 
When  we  stop  to  think  for  a  moment  it  re- 
quires more  than  American  self-assurance  to 
call  Italy  and  Poland  and  those  Slavic  princi- 
palities whose  feats  at  arms  are  amazing  the 
world  today,  degenerate.  We  are  receiving  the 
descendants  of  men  and  women  whose  deathless 
deeds  have  shaped  the  history  of  the  world,  who 
have  left  us  an  imperishable  heritage  of  litera- 
ture and  art  and  music.  Who  are  we,  and 
what  have  we  done  that  we  should  sneer  at  those 
who  come  to  us  from  the  land  of  Homer  and 
Socrates,  from  the  country  of  Dante  and  Vir- 
gil, and  Caesar  and  Michael  Angelo.?  and  from 
that  suffering,  sorrowful  race  without  a  coun- 
try, a  race  which  has  given  to  the  world  the  po- 
etry of  David  and  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  in 
whose  mould  was  cast  the  features  of  him  we 
call  the  Savior  of  the  world.  I  think  that  we 
are  beginning  to  see  the  folly  of  our  pride  and 
prejudice  against  the  men  and  women  who  are 
coming  to  our  shores,  not  seeking  bread  alone, 
but  laden  also  with  the  unfulfilled  dreams  and 


20  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

visions  of  the  centuries.  The  better  spirit  of 
America  is  speaking  in  lines  like  these  from  one 
of  our  younger  poets : 

"  Countrymen,  bend  and  invoke 

Mercy  for  us  blasphemers, 
For  that  we  spat  on  the  marvellous  folk. 

Nations  of  darers  and  dreamers. 
Scions  of  singers  and  seers. 
Our  peers  and  more  than  our  peers; 
Rabble  and  refuse  we  name  them 
And  scum  of  the  earth  to  shame  them. 
Mercy  for  us  of  the  few,  young  years. 

Of  the  culture  so  callow  and  crude, 

Of  the  hands  so  grasping  and  rude. 
The  lips  so  ready  with  sneers 
At  the  sons  of  our  ancient  more  than  peers. 
Mercy  for  us  who  dare  despise 
Men  in  whose  loins  our  Homer  lies. 
Mothers  of  men  who  shall  bring  to  us 
The  glory  of  Titian,  the  grandeur  of  Huss; 
Children  in  whose  frail  arms  shall  rest 
Prophets  and  singers  and  saints  of  the  West." 

I  want  to  ask  you  if  it  is  not  more  than  prob- 
able that  the  seed  of  the  stock  which  produced 
in  ancient  times  the  glory  and  beauty  and  won- 
der of  the  world  shall  bloom  again  under  the 
favoring  conditions  of  a  free  land?  It  has 
been  rendered  unproductive,  not  infertile,  by 
ages  of  oppression  and  ignorance  and  neglect. 
Shall  it  not  flower  again  under  our  fostering 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  21 

care,  beneath  the  open  skies  of  America?  You 
and  I,  native  born  Americans  must  consider 
these  things.  We  must  have  regard  not  for 
present  conditions  which  are  most  deceptive, 
but  for  potentialities  of  power  and  service  on 
the  part  of  the  immigrant  in  America.  Let  me 
quote  at  this  point  from  that  wonderful  book, 
by  that  wonderful  immigrant  Mary  Antin,  who 
is  herself  the  embodiment  of  all  that  is  hopeful 
in  this  great  problem.  In  speaking  of  the 
hardships  of  her  father's  life  during  the  past 
years  in  America,  she  says: 

"  His  history  for  the  period  is  the  history  of 
thousands  who  come  to  America  like  him,  with 
pockets  empty,  hands  untrained  to  the  use  of  tools, 
minds  cramped  by  centuries  of  repression  in  for- 
eign lands.  Dozens  of  these  men  pass  under  your 
eyes  every  day,  my  American  friend,  too  absorbed 
in  their  honest  affairs  to  notice  the  looks  of  sus- 
picion which  you  cast  at  them,  the  repugnance  with 
which  you  shrink  at  their  touch.  You  see  them 
shuffle  from  door  to  door  with  a  basket  of  tools  or 
buttons,  or  bending  over  the  sizzling  iron  in  a  base- 
ment tailor  shop,  or  moving  a  pushcart  from  curb  to 
curb,  at  the  command  of  the  burly  policeman.  The 
Jew  peddler,  you  say,  and  dismiss  him  from  your 
premises  and  from  your  thoughts,  never  dreaming 
that  the  sordid  drama  of  his  days  may  have  a  moral 
which  concerns  you.  What  if  the  creature  with  the 
untidy  beard  carries  in  his  bosom  his  citizen  pa- 
pers.''    What  if  the  cross-legged  tailor  is  support- 


2^  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ing  a  boy  in  college  who  is  one  day  going  to  mend 
your  state  constitutions  for  you?  What  if  the  rag- 
picker's daughters  are  hastening  over  the  ocean  to 
teach  your  children  in  the  public  schools?  Think 
every  time  you  pass  the  greasy  alien  in  the  street 
that  he  was  born  thousands  of  years  before  the 
oldest  native  American;  and  he  may  have  some- 
thing to  communicate  to  you  when  you  have  learned 
a  common  language.  Remember  that  in  his  very 
physiognomy  is  a  cipher,  the  key  it  behooves  you 
to  search  for  most  diligently." 

This  is  a  challenge  which  we  of  Amer- 
ica cannot  ignore.  The  alien  is  here.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  about  it.''  Are  you 
going  to  hate  him,  fear  him,  neglect  him, 
mock  him,  shun  him?  Or  are  you  going 
to  realize  that  he  is  a  human  being  like  your- 
self, with  a  history  as  proud  as  your  own,  with 
dreams  and  ideals  in  his  breast,  with  a  deep 
unsatisfied  longing  for  education  and  oppor- 
tunity, thirsty  for  the  wells  at  which  you  have 
been  privileged  to  drink  deep?  Are  you  going 
not  simply  to  make  a  citizen  of  him,  but  are  you 
going  to  try  to  make  a  useful  and  an  intelligent 
citizen?  Are  you  going  to  draw  upon  his  hid- 
den and  undeveloped  resources  of  power?  Are 
3^ou  going  to  develop  his  peculiar  and  individ- 
ual characteristics  in  harmony  with  the  spirit 
of  free  institutions,  in  accordance  with  the 
genius  of  America?     This  is  soul-stuff  in  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  28 

rough  which  God  has  sent  us,  just  as  good  clay, 
so  far  as  quality  goes,  as  our  own.  We  are 
to  take  it  and  mould  it  in  accordance  with  the 
traditions  of  freedom  and  virtue  and  obedience 
and  reverence  and  service  which  have  been 
handed  down  to  us  from  our  fathers.  How 
shall  we  do  it?  I  have  no  doubt  that  every 
thoughtful  person  asks  that  question  of  himself 
over  and  over.  The  gulf  seems  so  wide  to  span, 
these  people  seem  so  far  apart  in  our  daily 
lives.  No  matter  how  good  our  intentions 
may  be,  there  seems  to  be  no  possible  method 
of  influence  and  contact.  Fortunately  for  us, 
providentially  I  believe,  there  are  certain  in- 
struments of  democracy  which  work  automat- 
ically, without  the  necessity  of  personal  initia- 
tive. The  one  great  instrumentality  which 
assimilates  and  Americanizes  the  foreign  element 
is  the  public  school.  The  immigrant  who  looks 
to  the  promised  land  from  the  bondage  of  op- 
pression, idealizes  America.  In  many  respects 
his  dream  is  destined  to  a  rude  awakening.  He 
finds  that  he  must  stiU  struggle  for  his  daily 
bread  in  the  fierce  competition  of  our  American 
cities.  He  finds  that  he  must  live  in  squalid 
surroundings.  He  receives  scant  courtesy  and 
sympathy  in  his  daily  contact  with  life,  but  the 
public  school  never  disappoints  him.  It  stands 
for  the  opportunity  for  his  children  which  he 
has  missed.     It  treats  every  nationality  alike, 


24  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

without  fear  and  without  favor :  without  money 
and  without  price  it  dispenses  to  the  poorest 
that  which  is  more  precious  than  rubies.  Let 
me  quote  again  from  Mary  Antin: 

"  The  pubHc  school  has  done  its  best  for  us  for- 
eigners and  for  the  country  when  it  has  made  us 
into  good  Americans.  I  am  glad  that  it  is  mine  to 
tell  you  how  the  miracle  was  wrought  in  one  case. 
You  should  be  glad  to  hear  of  it,  you  free-born 
Americans,  for  it  is  the  story  of  the  growth  of  your 
country:  of  the  flocking  of  your  brothers  and  sis- 
ters from  the  far  ends  of  the  earth  to  the  flag  you 
love,  of  the  recruiting  of  your  armies  of  workers, 
thinkers  and  leaders.  As  I  read  in  school  how  the 
patriots  planned  the  Revolution,  and  the  women 
gave  their  sons  in  battle,  it  dawned  on  me  grad- 
ually what  was  meant  by  my  country.  The  people 
all  desiring  noble  things,  and  striving  for  them  to- 
gether, defying  their  oppressors,  giving  their  lives 
for  each  other  —  all  this  it  was  that  made  my  coun- 
try. It  was  not  a  thing  that  I  understood :  I  could 
not  go  home  and  tell  my  sister  about  it  as  I  told 
her  the  other  things  I  learned  in  school.  But  I 
knew  one  who  could  say  '  my  country  '  and  feel  it, 
as  one  felt  *  God '  or  myself.  My  teacher,  my 
schoolmates,  George  Washington  himself  could  not 
mean  more  than  I  when  they  said  my  country  after 
I  had  once  felt  it.  For  the  country  was  for  all  the 
citizens  and  I  was  a  citizen.  And  when  we  stood 
up  to  sing  *  America  *  I  shouted  the  words  with  all 
my  might.     I  was  very  earnest  proclaiming  to  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  25 

world  my  love  for  my  new  found  country.     '  I  love 
thy  rocks  and  rills,  thy  woods  and  templed  hills/  ** 

Not  all  the  children  of  immigrants  can  ex- 
press their  feelings  so  eloquently  as  this,  but  in 
all  the  miracle  is  wrought.  It  is  a  miracle. 
Without  even  consciously  striving  for  it  the 
public  school  manages  along  with  the  teaching 
of  the  ordinary  branches  of  knowledge,  to  per- 
form a  wonder  greater  than  was  ever  claimed 
for  the  touchstone  of  the  alchemist.  It  takes 
all  these  different  nationalities  gathered  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  it  makes  them  citi- 
zens, it  gives  them  the  consciousness  of  citizen- 
ship, it  makes  them  glow  with  a  patriotism 
which  is  often  more  intense  than  that  of  the  na- 
tive born.  The  former  president  of  Harvard 
University  has  made  the  complaint,  that  the 
public  school  does  not  do  this  work  fast  enough. 
On  the  contrary,  it  does  it  with  surprising, 
miraculous  speed.  And  this  is  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  service  which  it  renders 
the  state.  I  have  often  told  public  school 
teachers  of  my  own  church  who  are  teaching  the 
children  of  foreigners  largely,  that  there  is  no 
work  in  the  world  short  of  that  of  the  foreign 
missionary  so  important  and  significant  for  hu- 
man welfare  as  theirs.  I  would  emphasize  that 
statement  publicly.  We  want  teachers  who  are 
well  trained  technically  for  their  scholastic  du- 


26  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ties,  but  above  and  beyond  that  we  want  teach- 
ers with  character,  men  and  women  who  pas- 
sionately love  their  country,  for  to  them  is  en- 
trusted the  sacred  duty  of  moulding  the  citizen- 
ship of  the  republic,  to  them  must  be  left  very 
largely  the  task  of  taking  these  diverse  ele- 
ments of  life,  and  welding  them  into  a  cohesive, 
homogeneous  people  imbued  with  high  ideals  of 
knowledge,  of  righteousness,  of  patriotism. 

Not  far  short  of  the  public  school,  supple- 
menting and  cooperating  in  the  work  and  in- 
fluence is  the  free  public  library.  I  never  see 
the  statue  of  the  grim  old  Puritan,  as  he  stands 
near  our  public  library,  with  his  book  beneath 
his  arm,  looking  down  upon  the  groups  of  for- 
eign children  with  their  books  beneath  their 
arms,  without  a  thrill  of  enthusiasm  and  hope- 
fulness. For  the  Book,  whether  it  be  the  He- 
brew Scriptures  or  some  other  divinely  inspired 
source  of  knowledge  and  faith,  is  the  symbol 
of  the  unshackled  mind,  of  enlightenment  and 
freedom. 

I  realize  that  I  have  said  very  little  about 
the  personal  or  the  religious  approach  in  rela- 
tion to  the  immigrant  problem.  Such  ap- 
proach requires  great  wisdom  and  tact  and  pa- 
tience. There  are  many  opportunities  which 
may  be  sought  out  for  expression  of  personal 
sympathy  and  courtesy,  and  fellowship  with 
those    of    other    races.     These    opportunities 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  27 

come  unsought  as  we  mingle  together  in  the  cos- 
mopolitan life  of  the  city.  I  believe  that  it  is 
possible  to  supplement  the  service  of  our 
schools  and  libraries  with  evening  meetings  for 
social  and  educational  purposes  in  our  school 
houses.  The  saddest  thing  after  all,  about  the 
situation  is  the  hopelessness  of  the  adult  for- 
eigner whose  children  will  reach  the  goal,  but 
who  has  come  to  America  too  late  to  receive  the 
benefits  of  education,  the  fulfillment  of  his 
ideals  and  dreams.  For  him  the  country  ought 
to  devise  some  extensions  of  educational  and 
social  opportunities  in  connection  with  the 
school  system.  The  opportunity  of  the  church 
will  come  more  slowly,  but  it  will  surely  come. 
It  will  come  in  the  same  direction,  along  lines 
of  personal  interest  and  sympathy  and  friend- 
ship for  our  alien  brethren. 

But  the  most  important  thing  it  seems  to  me 
is  this.  After  all,  these  people  must  work  out 
their  own  destinies.  We  cannot  be  too  pater- 
nal in  our  care.  That  is  what  they  have 
come  to  our  country  to  avoid.  What  they 
want  above  all  things  else  is  liberty  of  personal 
initiative,  opportunity  in  its  broadest  and  fre- 
est aspect.  In  the  school  and  in  the  library 
we  are  giving  them  what  they  most  desire. 
These  institutions  express  our  consciousness  in 
spiritual  terms.  There  is  no  taint  here  of 
commercialism,  of  self-interest.     The  city  says 


28  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

to  the  immigrant :  "  You  seek  work,  bread,  per- 
haps a  fortune  in  America ;  well,  that  is  a  mat- 
ter which  you  must  work  out  for  yourself.  You 
seek  also  opportunity,  you  seek  for  room 
in  which  your  souls  may  grow,  you  seek  the 
fulfillment  of  your  dreams  and  visions  and 
ideals,  and  we  open  to  you  freely  without  dis- 
crimination, without  price,  the  shining  portals 
of  knowledge.  The  generous  hand  of  the  city 
bestows  this  largess  upon  you  all.  Enter  into 
your  inheritance."  And  we  of  the  older  Amer- 
ica must  stand  back  of  this  ideal.  We  must 
show  by  the  character  of  our  city  itself  how 
inestimably  we  prize  our  heritage.  Our  dream 
is,  of  one  country,  a  common,  united  people, 
strong  in  the  determination  to  live  nobly,  to 
realize  our  ideals,  to  build  here  the  new  Jeru- 
salem, the  shining  city  of  God. 

"  New  comers  all,  from  the  Eastern  seas. 
Help  us  incarnate  dreams  like  these; 
Forget  and  forgive  that  we  did  you  wrong. 
Help  us  to  father  a  nation,  strong 
In  the  comradeship  of  our  equal  birth. 
In  the  wealth  of  the  richest  bloods  of  earth." 


Ill 

CIVIC  RESPONSIBILITY  ^ 

Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world.  A  city  that  is  set  upon 
a  hill  cannot  be  hid.  Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men 
that  they  may  see  your  good  works  and  glorify  your 
father  which  is  in  heaven. —  Matthew  5 :  14-16. 

The  conquest  and  development  of  a  new  con- 
tinent requires  the  putting  forth  of  those 
splendid  individualistic  qualities  of  heroism 
and  self-assertion  which  are  incarnated  in  the 
pioneer.  The  pioneer  must  act  wholly  upon 
his  own  initiative.  He  must  be  able  to  go  out 
into  the  wilderness  with  his  axe  and  his  rifle 
and  recreate  civilization.  He  must  possess 
courage,  industry,  patience,  skill.  He  must 
have  the  genius  of  the  inventor,  he  must  be  his 
own  physician  and  priest,  he  must  be  undaunted 
by  failure,  the  grim  spectres  of  suffering,  of 
hunger  and  cold  must  not  terrify  him.  Within 
his  breast  there  must  be  a  dynamic  force  which 
pushes  him  on  as  the  engines  of  the  ocean  liner 
force  her  against  tide  and  current  across  the 
sea. 

1  Preached  at  Mount  Holyoke  College  on  Washington's 
Birthday. 

29 


30  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

So  great  have  been  the  tasks  accomplished 
by  the  pioneer  in  the  building  and  preserving 
of  the  nation  that  his  qualities  have  become 
embodied  in  the  creed  of  American  life.  The 
American  child  is  taught  that  he  must  have 
push,  initiative,  enterprise.  He  must  "  get 
there,"  in  the  vernacular  of  the  street.  By 
what  route  is  immaterial  so  long  as  he  "  ar- 
rives "  with  a  fortune.  He  must  reach  the  top 
of  the  ladder  no  matter  what  becomes  of  those 
whom  he  pushes  aside  in  his  upward  ascent.  He 
is  taught  from  the  beginning,  to  cultivate  and 
worship  the  Ego.  No  matter  how  many 
fail  he  must  win.  Within  limitations  these 
qualities  are  admirable.  The  child  should  be 
taught  to  cultivate  concentration,  persistence, 
ambition.  He  should  be  taught  to  have  faith 
in  himself  and  high  courage,  to  be  undaunted 
by  failure,  to  laugh  at  hardship  and  disaster. 
But  there  are  certain  very  grave  dangers  to  the 
republic  which  have  already  resulted  and  will 
continue  to  result  from  the  over  emphasis  of 
these  admirable  characteristics. 

The  time  comes  when  the  nation  passes  be- 
yond the  pioneer  stage.  The  roaring  city  with 
its  myriad-spindled  mills,  its  tides  of  traffic, 
its  palaces  and  its  hovels,  rises  on  the  river  bank 
where  the  cabin  stood  lonely  in  the  clearing. 
The  descendant  of  the  man  who  saw  his  neigh- 
bor only  once  in  six  months  is  pushed  and  jos- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  31 

tied  in  the  hurrying  throng.  The  pioneer  was 
a  law  unto  himself.  The  citizen  of  the  great 
city  is  only  one  to  be  considered  among  one 
hundred  thousand.  Each  of  the  one  hundred 
thousand  has  his  own  desires,  his  own  needs,  he 
is  seeking  his  own  ends,  and  each  is  entitled  to 
equal  consideration  under  the  great  law  of  de- 
mocracy. 

The  partial  failure  of  our  civic  life,  and  that 
carries  with  it  the  failure  of  democracy,  has 
come  largely  from  the  fact  that  we  have  carried 
over  the  self-assertive,  individualistic  qualities 
of  the  pioneer  into  the  complex  life  of  our 
American  communities.  Each  individual  has 
been  bent,  with  restless  energy  upon  the  devel- 
opment of  his  own  life  and  his  own  fortune, 
careless  of  the  fact  that  he  owed  any  duty  or 
responsibility  whatever  to  the  community  in 
which  he  lived.  So  far  as  any  real  helpful- 
ness or  cooperation  is  concerned  many  of  our 
most  successful  business  men  might  have  been 
living  in  cabins  in  the  wilderness  or  in  old  ba- 
ronial castles  of  feudal  days. 

We  are  beginning  to  realize  that  this  is  not 
good  citizenship.  A  person  is  not  a  good  citi- 
zen today  because  he  possesses  the  sterling  vir- 
tues of  the  pioneer,  because  he  hustles  from 
morning  until  night,  because  he  is  shrewder,  or 
stronger  or  more  unscrupulous  than  his  com- 
petitor.    In  the  wilderness  the  strong  arm,  the 


32  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

keen  eye  and  the  finger  quick  upon  the  trigger, 
were  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  successful 
man,  the  desirable  citizen.  You  cannot  carry 
over  these  qualities  into  the  modem  community ; 
or  if  you  do,  you  will  have  a  civilization  which 
is  brutal,  coarse,  corrupt,  with  anarchy  and 
revolution  looming  through  the  red  haze  ahead. 
Social  life  constantly  tends  to  become  more 
complex.  Labor  is  placed  more  and  more  upon 
the  cooperative  basis.  There  must  be  a  buyer 
as  well  as  a  seller  and  the  rights  of  each  must 
be  protected.  The  trained  hand  takes  the 
place  of  the  strong  arm.  Instead  of  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  wilderness,  the  arts  must  be 
cultivated.  Instead  of  the  straining  team  and 
the  straight  furrow  across  the  virgin  prairie, 
there  must  be  the  development  of  literature  and 
music  and  painting  and  architecture.  The 
city  is  a  vast  organ  with  a  thousand  thousand 
pipes:  it  is  a  breathing  body  with  a  net  work 
of  interlacing  sensitive  nerves.  Not  with 
rough  hand,  not  with  brutal,  elemental  pas- 
sions comes  the  master  who  will  evoke  har- 
mony. The  true  citizen  of  the  modern  city  is 
he  who  forgets  himself,  in  the  larger  life  about 
him,  who  is  sensitive  to  the  city's  myriad  moods 
and  endless  wants,  its  passions  and  its  pain,  to 
its  marvellously  complicated  life  which  goes  on 
beneath  the  stars  at  night  and  its  pall  of  smoke 
by  day.     The  good  citizen  is  he  who  loves  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  33 

city  with  a  passionate  devotion,  whose  heart 
thrills  with  a  sense  of  civic  pride  and  a  deepen- 
ing sense  of  civic  responsibility. 

Responsibility!  That  is  the  master  word 
of  the  new  citizenship.  Here  is  this  marvel- 
lously complex  life  which  modern  conditions 
have  called  into  being.  It  is  a  living  organism. 
It  has  a  soul.  Infinite  possibilities  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  service  and  shame  are  hidden  within 
its  future.  We  have  not  yet  begun  to  measure 
these  forces  or  hardly  to  understand  them.  It 
may  be  that  in  the  shadow  lurks  tragedy  darker 
than  ever  Paris  saw  when  her  barricades  ran 
red  with  the  blood  of  revolution.  Who  shall 
direct  these  forces,  who  shall  be  responsible  for 
the  city,''  Who,  if  not  her  citizens,  both  men 
and  women,  and  her  educated  citizens.?  Her 
men  and  women  of  training  and  resourcefulness 
and  power!  This  sounds  like  a  trite  common- 
place. But  is  it.''  As  a  matter  of  fact  such 
men  and  women  have  attended  to  everything 
but  the  communal  life.  They  have  been  busy 
with  their  own  affairs,  their  own  homes,  their 
own  business  and  professions  and  pleasures. 
There  has  been  very  little  direct  training  for 
citizenship  in  our  colleges.  The  individualistic 
standard  of  excellence  has  been  constantly  held 
up.  Students  have  been  urged  to  perfect  them- 
selves in  scholarship,  in  culture,  not  that  the 
communal  life  might  be  enriched,  not  that  serv- 


34  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ice  might  be  rendered  to  the  community,  but 
that  the  individual  life  might  be  richer  in  knowl- 
edge and  resourcefulness,  and  success  attained 
in  the  chosen  calling. 

These  students  have  gone  forth  with  no  true 
sense  of  social  responsibility.  In  the  striking 
words  of  Jesus,  they  have  not  "  let  their  light 
shine  before  men."  But  for  what  is  the  city.? 
What  is  its  true  end  and  aim.''  Is  it  not,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  the  place  where  life  shall 
be  better  and  sweeter  and  richer  and  more 
abundant  than  elsewhere.?  Its  functions  of 
government,  its  schools  and  its  libraries,  its 
closely  associated  life,  are  not  for  selfish  and 
utilitarian  ends  alone,  but  to  lift  men  out  of 
ignorance  and  darkness  and  bondage  to  the 
light  of  the  high  privilege  of  the  sons  of  God. 
And  I  say  that  the  humblest  school  teacher, 
working  with  alien  children  amid  the  squalid 
surroundings  of  the  tenement  district  of  a  great 
city,  working  not  simply  for  her  daily  bread, 
but  with  a  holy  enthusiasm  for  her  calling,  is 
deserving  of  a  higher  place  upon  the  city's  roll 
of  fame  than  the  millionaire  who  draws  every- 
thing in  and  gives  nothing  out. 

The  city  will  not  develop  its  own  higher  life. 
It  will  not  conduct  its  own  affairs,  any  more 
than  a  great  mercantile  business  will  conduct 
itself.  Such  affairs  demand  the  expenditure  of 
energy  and  time,  and  the  sacrifice  of  personal 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  35 

inclination.  If  our  best  citizens  have  not  suf- 
ficient patriotism  to  attend  to  these  matters 
themselves,  if  they  turn  them  over  to  the  ig- 
norant, the  corrupt,  the  alien,  they  must  ex- 
pect, themselves,  to  suffer.  We  must  realize 
that  more  and  more  the  forces  of  ignorance  and 
vice  are  massing  in  the  city.  The  good  citi- 
zen, the  educated  citizen  will  have  to  fight,  if  he 
expects  to  conquer  these  forces.  He  must 
bring  all  the  trained  resources  at  his  command 
to  bear  upon  the  situation.  He  cannot  buy 
good  government  in  the  market.  He  cannot 
contract  for  civic  righteousness.  These  and 
other  blessings  can  come  only  as  we  give  our 
own  illuminated  individualities  that  the  light 
of  truth  and  honor  may  shine,  and  the  city 
may  find  its  redeemed  life.  There  is  no  other 
way.  This  is  the  sacrifice  of  self  which  the 
city  demands.  Not  the  old  proud  independ- 
ence and  self-assertion,  but  the  humble  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  in  the  city  life  is  bound 
up  with  life  in  vital  relationships  which  cannot 
be  denied.  The  pestilence  which  stalks  through 
the  city  at  noonday  and  beckons  with  ghostly 
hand  at  the  door  of  the  palace  as  well  as  the 
hovel :  —  you  are  responsible  for  it,  oh  men  and 
women  of  wealth  and  leisure,  of  the  great  cities 
of  the  earth,  because  you  have  not  made  the 
slum,  the  breeding  place  of  plague,  impossible! 
It  is  because  of  your  denial  of  the  law  of  re- 


36  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

sponsibility,  because  you  have  not  considered 
your  brother  as  well  as  yourself.  You  must 
give  yourselves.  Go  into  the  ancient  cities  of 
the  world  and  read  on  the  monuments  of  bronze 
and  marble  how  men  have  given  of  themselves 
in  the  years  that  are  gone;  how  the  giving  of 
personality  is  inseparably  connected  with  worth 
and  progress  and  achievement  in  the  city's  life. 
London  and  Leyden,  Calais,  Geneva,  Venice, 
Florence,  Rome.  You  cannot  think  of  the 
proud  cities  of  the  earth  without  thinking  of 
prouder  names,  from  the  humble  burgher,  to 
Savonarola  in  his  shroud  of  flame,  who  have 
given  of  themselves,  whose  very  blood  has  ce- 
mented the  stones  which  make  the  foundation 
of  the  city's  worth. 

In  San  Francisco,  there  is  a  little  monument 
which  the  earthquake  spared  and  the  flames  of 
the  holocaust  did  not  scorch.  It  is  the  monu- 
ment erected  to  the  memory  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  and  there  have  been  men  in  San 
Francisco,  in  the  days  of  graft  and  pillage, 
who,  ashamed  with  the  shame  of  death  of  their 
city's  shame,  have  taken  courage  as  they  have 
passed  that  memorial,  and  have  remembered 
that  the  high  ideals  of  literature  and  art,  of 
service  and  sacrifice,  are  the  enduring  things, 
and  not  the  selfish  scramble  of  sordid  men  for 
gain  and  place. 

Responsibility !  not  the  prayer,  "  Make  me 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  37 

rich  O  Lord!  Make  me  learned,  make  me  com- 
fortable in  Zion  " ;  but,  "  O  Lord,  what  can  I 
do  for  others  more  needy  than  myself!  What 
can  I  do  for  the  community  in  which  I  live !  " 
Every  one  should  feel  toward  his  own  city  that 
sense  of  longing  desire  to  serve  which  inspired 
Browning  when  he  wrote: 

"  Nobly,  nobly.  Cape  St.  Vincent  to  the  northwest 
died  away. 

Sunset  ran  one  glorious  blood-red  reeking  into 
Cadiz  Bay; 

Bluish  'mid  the  burning  waters  full  in  face  Trafal- 
gar lay: 

In  the  dimmest  northeast  distance  dawned  Gibral- 
tar grand  and  gray, 

Here  and  here  did  England  help  me, 

How  can  I  help  England,  say !  " 

That  should  be  the  attitude  of  every  citizen. 
Not  how  much  can  I  get  out  of  the  city,  not 
how  may  I  actually  plunder  and  rob  the  city, 
but  how  can  I  help  the  community?  How  can 
I  best  give,  in  return  for  what  she  has  given 
me,  my  loyal  and  loving  service.? 

For  our  highest  examples  of  what  such  love 
and  loyalty  and  sense  of  responsibility  mean, 
we  must  go  back  after  all,  not  to  the  pioneer, 
not  even  to  the  days  of  Washington,  but  to 
those  mediaeval  cities  of  England  and  the  Con- 
tinent whose  life  we  often  affect  to  despise  be- 


38  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

cause  we  know  so  little  of  it.  We  must  go 
back  to  such  scenes  as  attended  the  building  of 
the  cathedral  of  Chartres,  where  the  men  and 
women  harnessed  themselves  to  carts  and  drew 
the  great  blocks  of  stone  which  were  built  into 
its  splendid  fa9ade  and  its  soaring  pinnacles ; 
or  to  the  famous  church  of  St.  Denis,  of  which 
a  writer  says: 

"  A  layman  was  its  architect,  guilds  of  lay  car- 
penters and  masons  raised  its  walls,  guilds  of  lay 
sculptors,  painters  and  glass  makers  adorned  them, 
and  the  people  chiefly  paid  the  cost.  Often,  men, 
women,  and  children  together  worked  with  passion- 
ate enthusiasm  upon  the  structure  which  was  at 
once  the  temple  of  their  faith,  the  sign  of  their  city's 
greatness,  and  the  hearthstone  of  their  liberties." 

Contrast  this  spirit  with  the  indifference 
which  the  citizens  of  the  modern  city  show  to 
its  adornment,  to  its  permanent  glory,  yes,  even 
to  its  moral  and  spiritual  welfare.  We  talk 
sometimes  of  loving  our  cities,  of  patriotism 
and  the  willingness  to  sacrifice.  But  when 
we  moderns  in  our  comfortable  homes  amid  our 
pleasant  surroundings  talk  of  sacrifice,  my 
thoughts  go  back  to  that  old  chronicle  which 
tells  of  the  loyalty  of  the  burgesses  of  Calais. 
You  remember  how,  after  the  year's  siege,  King 
Edward  offered  mercy  to  the  starving  city  on 
condition  that  six  of  the  citizens  should  give 
themselves   into   his  hands.     "  On   them,"   said 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  59 

the  stark  king,  "  I  will  to  do  my  will." 
"  Then,"  says  the  old  chronicler,  "  stood  up 
the  wealthiest  burgess  of  all.  Master  Eustache 
de  St.  Pierre,  and  thus  he  spoke :  '  My  Mas- 
ters, great  grief  and  mishap  it  were  for  all  to 
leave  such  a  people  as  this  to  die  by  famine  or 
otherwise,  and  great  charity  and  grace  would 
he  win  from  our  Lord  who  could  defend  them 
from  dying.  For  me,  I  have  great  hope  in  the 
Lord  that  if  I  can  save  this  people  by  my  death, 
I  shall  have  pardon  from  my  faults,  wherefore 
will  I  be  the  first  of  the  six,  and  of  my  own 
will  put  myself  barefoot  in  my  shirt  and  with  a 
halter  round  my  neck  in  the  mercy  of  King 
Edward.'  After  him  stood  up  other  five,  and 
they  six  saved  the  city,  and  by  the  intercession 
of  the  good  Queen  Philippa  were  themselves 
saved  from  the  wrath  of  the  king." 

Such,  in  the  old  days,  was  the  ideal  of  civic 
service.  "  Not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister  "  and  to  give  one's  very  life  if  need  be, 
a  "  ransom  for  many."  Such,  not  a  ministry 
of  death,  but  of  more  abundant  life  may  be  our 
ministry  today  as  we  go  forth  to  the  larger 
service  which  our  age  demands,  singing  the 
blithe  song  of  the  English  poet : 

"  I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight. 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand, 
Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem, 
In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land.'* 


40  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

I  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  old  in- 
dividualistic conception  of  life  shall  pass  away, 
when  in  every  part  of  our  own  pleasant  land 
shall  be  built  the  new  Jerusalem,  in  which  shall 
be  found  nothing  foul  or  unclean,  no  squalor 
or  misery,  but  love  and  righteousness  and  law 
and  order,  the  shining  city  of  God,  the  "  man- 
sion house  of  liberty "  in  which  beauty  and 
utility  shall  walk  hand  in  hand,  where  there 
shall  be  equal  opportunity  and  equal  privilege 
for  every  child  of  God.  So,  please  God,  we 
shall  build  the  city  of  the  new  democracy !  To- 
day it  may  seem  only  a  dream,  but  let  us  not 
despair. 

"  Such  visions  are  of  morning, 
Theirs  is  no  vague  forewarning, 
The  dreams  that  nations  dream  come  true 

And  shape  the  world  anew. 
And  down  the  happy  future  runs  a  flood 

Of  prophesying  light ; 
It  sees  an  earth  no  longer  stained  with  blood, 
Blossom  and  fruit  where  now  we  see  the  bud 

Of  brotherhood  and  right !  " 


IV 
THE   BATTLE  AGAINST  EVIL 

Finally,  my  brethren,  be  strong  in  the  Lord,  and  in 
the  power  of  his  might.  Put  on  the  whole  armour  of 
God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against  the  wiles  of 
the  devil.  For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood, 
but  against  principalities  and  powers,  against  the  rulers 
of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wicked- 
ness in  high  places. —  Ephesians  6 :  10-12f. 

The  problem  of  evil  has  one  very  discour- 
aging aspect.  It  is  a  new  problem  with  every 
individual  and  every  generation.  In  the  ma- 
terial world  humanity  makes  certain  definite  and 
positive  gains.  There  are  some  battles  which 
once  fought  and  won,  do  not  have  to  be  fought 
over  again.  There  are  some  gains  which  are 
permanent.  When  the  world  goes  to  sleep  to- 
night it  will  not  wake  up  tomorrow  under  the 
painful  necessity  of  rediscovering  all  that  it 
ever  knew  of  science  and  art  and  literature. 
Libraries  and  laboratories  and  schools  are 
permanent  depositories  of  the  accumulated 
wisdom  of  the  world.  But  you  cannot  store  up 
righteousness  and  deal  it  out  in  suitable  por- 
tions to  those  who  stand  in  need  of  it.  The  pi- 
41 


42  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

oneer  cuts  down  the  forest  trees,  lets  in  the 
light,  exterminates  the  wild  beasts,  prepares 
the  way  for  the  coming  city,  and  his  work  does 
not  have  to  be  repeated.  The  great  irrigation 
dams  built  in  the  western  country  will  not  have 
to  be  rebuilt.  The  face  of  nature  has  been 
permanently  changed.  The  desert  wastes  will 
soon  blossom  like  the  rose,  fed  by  unfailing 
streams  from  the  snows  of  the  everlasting  hills. 
When  the  waters  of  the  eastern  and  the  western 
seas  are  wedded  in  the  Panama  Canal  it  will  be 
a  perpetual  union.  The  gigantic  task  of  cut- 
ting through  the  isthmus  will  not  have  to  be  re- 
peated in  each  succeeding  century.  But  we 
cannot  in  the  same  way  make  permanent  gains 
in  righteousness.  We  cannot  convert  a  city  to 
holiness  and  say  that  work  will  never  have  to  be 
done  over  again.  That  community  will  never 
relapse  into  sin.  The  work  is  done  for  the 
ages.  The  march  of  civilization  drives  the 
wolves  from  the  clearings,  but  it  does  not  drive 
the  savage  wolves  of  evil  and  lust  from  the 
hearts  of  men.  The  old  primitive  passions 
break  out  just  as  fiercely,  with  a  heat  as  in- 
tense and  blasting  as  they  did  at  the  dawn  of 
history. 

Here  is  a  family  which  for  generations  has 
been  the  possessor  of  wealth  and  refinement. 
By  no  possibility  could  a  member  of  that  fam- 
ily suddenly  revert  to  the  ignorance  of  a  sav- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  43 

age  and  display  at  the  breakfast  table  the  man- 
ners of  a  South  Sea  Islander.  But  you  may 
read  in  your  newspaper  some  morning  that  a 
member  of  that  proud  and  influential  family 
has  reverted  to  the  sins  of  the  savage,  and  has 
displayed  in  some  vile  den  the  brutal  passions 
of  the  South  Sea  Islander.  Refined  manner 
and  culture  may  be  transmitted  with  mahogany 
furniture  and  ancestral  plate  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  but  a  pure  heart  and  a  clean 
life  is  something  which  every  man  and  woman 
must  acquire  by  personal  eff*ort,  by  stern  con- 
flict with  the  primitive  foe  which  assails  every 
soul.  Indeed,  the  conditions  of  an  advanced 
civilization,  instead  of  making  righteousness 
more  simple,  complicate  the  problem.  While 
living  grows  easier  along  material  lines  it  grows 
harder  in  the  moral  sphere.  This  is  a  matter 
which  we  do  not  often  enough  consider.  We 
are  so  absorbed  in  the  work  and  pleasure  of  our 
highly  complicated  society  that  we  do  not  con- 
sider the  perils  which  lurk  in  the  shadow. 
Somehow  they  do  not  seem  real  to  us,  they  do 
not  concern  us.  If  we  are  only  busy  about  our 
aff^airs,  if  we  are  only  constantly  employed  with 
some  absorbing  interest,  we  seem  to  think  that 
nothing  more  is  required  of  us.  We  walk  in 
the  sunshine  of  our  own  prosperity,  our  own 
ceaseless  activity,  and  we  evade  or  forget  our 
moral  responsibility. 


44  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

This  is  a  fair  charge  against  the  modern 
man  or  woman,  and  the  nominally  Christian 
man  or  woman.  There  is  terrible  danger  that 
we  shall  substitute  mere  activity  for  moral  con- 
sciousness, the  routine  of  business  and  pleasure 
for  character.  Here  is  a  family  of  the  type 
of  which  I  have  spoken ;  respectable,  moral,  and 
endlessly  busy  from  morning  until  night. 
Everything  progresses  according  to  the  usual 
routine  in  a  respectable  family,  until  suddenly 
a  hand  is  stretched  up  from  that  under-world 
which  the  family  has  politely  ignored  and  a 
child  is  dragged  down  to  disgrace  and  shame. 
The  highly  respectable  family  loses,  for  a  little 
time  at  least,  its  self-poise.  It  feels  the  dis- 
grace keenly,  but  it  cannot  understand  why  this 
should  come  to  it.  It  has  come  to  the  members 
of  the  family  because  they  were  too  busy  to 
study  the  great  laws  of  life  under  which  we  live, 
to  consider  and  measure  the  forces  of  evil  which 
are  engendered  in  the  life  of  a  modern  city, 
too  busy  to  develop  the  powers  of  resistance  in 
the  child  and  give  it  by  training  the  strength  of 
character  required  for  the  conflict.  Many 
business  men  of  today  forget  that  they  were 
brought  up  in  smaller  communities,  under  con- 
ditions much  more  strict  than  those  which  ex- 
ist at  the  present  time.  They  forget  the 
watchful  care,  the  endless  patience,  the  pray- 
ers, expended  upon  them.     They  fail  to  realize 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  45 

the  seductiveness  of  a  great  city,  the  hypnotic 
influences  of  the  city  streets,  the  effect  of  their 
own  absorption  and  indifference  upon  the  im- 
mature lives  of  their  children.  We  are  all  apt 
to  forget  that  there  are  active  agencies  of  evil 
at  work  constantly  in  every  community.  This 
is  what  Paul  meant  in  that  remarkable  sentence 
of  his  letter  to  the  Ephesians.  "  For  we  wres- 
tle not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against 
principalities  and  powers,  against  the  rulers  of 
the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places."  He  was  writing  to 
people  living  under  the  conditions  of  a  highly 
organized  civilization,  in  a  great  city  which 
very  much  resembled  our  modern  cities ;  and  he 
warns  the  church  not  only  against  the  power  of 
individual  evil  arising  in  the  individual  nature, 
but  against  the  great  organized  forces  of  evil 
which  grow  out  of  the  very  association  of  men 
together.  Humanity  engenders  evil.  It  breeds 
wickedness.  There  are  great  unseen  forces  at 
work  constantly  which  are  poisoning  the  air, 
undermining  the  social  order.  It  is  very  hard 
for  the  respectable  man,  who  is  diligent  in  busi- 
ness, honest  about  his  affairs,  irreproachable 
in  character,  to  understand  this.  He  minds  his 
own  business.  He  wishes  no  one  any  harm,  and 
he  cannot  understand  why  all  people  do  not 
conduct  themselves  in  the  same  way.  He  can- 
not  believe   that    able,   unscrupulous    men    are 


46  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

working  constantly  to  do  evil,  to  exploit  soci- 
ety, to  coin  the  souls  of  men  into  gain. 

Everywhere  the  great  powers  of  darkness  are 
at  work.  Everywhere  evil  is  in  action.  It  is 
reaching  out  to  attack  and  destroy  virtue.  It 
is  organized  to  do  it.  The  result  is  expressed 
not  simply  in  terms  of  individual  wickedness. 
If  such  men  could  be  fought  and  punished,  that 
would  be  one  thing.  But  as  Paul  warns,  we 
wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood.  Evil  is  a 
deadly  and  pervasive  force  which  corrupts  the 
fountains  of  virtue  and  pollutes  the  springs  of 
innocency  at  their  source.  What  we  need  to 
understand  is  that  there  are  forces  in  every 
community  which  hold  righteousness  and  honor 
in  contempt,  men  whose  souls  are  as  black  as 
hell.  The  wickedness  which  these  men  do  is  not 
confined  in  little  pools  of  filth  and  scum ;  it  en- 
ters into  the  arterial  life  of  society,  by  secret 
and  subtle  channels  it  reaches  its  victims  even 
when  they  seem  to  be  in  security.  We  must 
recognize  the  fact  that  the  modern  city  is  not 
simply  a  place  of  enlightenment,  of  opportu- 
nity, of  churches  and  schools.  It  is  a  place  of 
deadly  evil,  of  pitfalls  and  perils,  of  corruption 
and  death.  It  is  of  no  use  to  ignore  these  facts. 
We  cannot  buy  immunity  for  our  children  with 
our  money.  We  cannot  safeguard  them  by 
education  alone.  There  is  no  hope  that  sci- 
ence will  discover  the  germ  of  sin  and  provide 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  47 

against  it  by  inoculation.  There  is  only  one 
way.  We  must  fight  it.  Paul  says,  bluntly 
and  plainly,  "  Put  on  the  whole  armour  of  God 
that  ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against  the  wiles 
of  the  devil." 

It  was  good  advice  to  the  Ephesians.  It  is 
good  advice  today.  You  cannot  reason  with  a 
charging  tiger.  Your  culture  and  education 
will  not  save  you  from  the  fangs  of  a  hungry 
wolf.  You  must  fight!  Evil  is  one  of  the  old 
brood  of  chaos  and  might,  like  the  plague  and 
the  tiger  in  the  jungle,  and  the  rattlesnake  in 
the  thicket.  These  things  must  be  subdued. 
We  do  not  know  why  they  are  here  in  the  earth, 
but  we  know  that  man  cannot  live  with  them, 
they  were  never  intended  to  be  parlor  pets. 
God  told  Adam  and  Eve  that  they  were  to  sub- 
due the  earth.  The  formidable  forces  of  na- 
ture which  threaten  the  life  of  man  must  be 
fought  and  conquered.  ,  There  can  be  no  com- 
promise. Sin  in  man's  heart  and  its  manifesta- 
tions in  the  life  of  man,  is  one  of  the  old  drag- 
on's brood  which  must  be  fought  without  com- 
promise and  destroyed.  The  fight  is  of  course 
a  personal  one. 

We  must  rid  our  own  soul-gardens  of  weeds 
and  noxious  things  before  we  embark  upon  any 
crusade  for  the  destruction  of  the  evils  of  so- 
ciety. We  cannot  win  this  fight  against  temp- 
tation    and     sin    without    divine    help.     "  Be 


48  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

strong  in  the  Lord  and  in  the  power  of  his 
might."  That  is  a  radiant  and  a  splendid  com- 
mand. Our  God  is  a  mighty  God.  No  man 
ever  prayed  earnestly  to  him  without  receiving 
help.  The  trouble  with  us  is  that  we  do  not 
half  believe  in  prayer  and  we  do  not  test  it. 

A  political  fight  was  going  on  for  the  pos- 
session of  a  great  state.  The  key  to  the  situa- 
tion was  the  unshaken  resolution  of  a  Christian 
young  man.  An  observer  writing  of  the  con- 
flict said: 

"  They  have  sought  to  attack  the  opposition  at 
the  weakest  point  and  the  weakest  man.  They 
have  brought  tremendous  pressure  to  bear  upon  him. 
They  have  taken  him  up  into  an  exceeding  high 
place  and  have  shown  him  all  the  glories  of  the 
earth,  and  promised  the  treasures  thereof  if  he  will 
fall  down  and  worship.  They  have  approached 
him  on  the  side  of  virtue  and  of  vice  and  have 
failed,  and  I  will  tell  you  why  they  have  failed. 
The  emissaries  of  the  enemy  do  not  know  what  it 
means  when  men  are  fighting  for  principles.  I  will 
tell  you  why  this  young  man  to  whom  I  refer  has 
not  failed  in  the  supreme  hour  of  test.  In  the  se- 
crecy of  his  chamber  he  has  gone  down  on  his  knees 
before  his  Maker.  Over  such  the  corrupt  politi- 
cians of  today  have  no  power." 

I  wonder  what  would  be  the  effect  if  all  pro- 
fessing Christians  met  their  temptations  daily 
in  this  manner.'^     If,  in  the  struggle  for  char- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  49 

acter,  everyone  sought  the  present  help  of  the 
Lord  God  Almighty.  If  every  man  in  business, 
in  politics,  every  lawyer  and  doctor  and 
teacher,  should  pray  earnestly  every  day: 
"  Lord,  help  me  as  I  put  my  armour  on.  Lord, 
be  with  me  as  I  meet  men  in  the  arena  of  life, 
as  I  come  in  contact  with  its  perils  and  its 
temptations.  Keep  my  life  clean  and  pure  and 
holy.  Guard  my  soul  from  sin  and  my  life 
from  evil.  Give  me  an  exalted  sense  of  my 
character  and  my  opportunity.  Help  me  to 
fight  the  demons  of  avarice  and  lust  and  selfish- 
ness. Make  me  thy  knight  and  give  my  sword 
the  victory." 

That  is  the  spirit  in  which  we  should  go 
every  one  of  us  to  our  task  in  the  battle  field  of 
the  world.  I  do  not  believe  in  war,  in  the  old 
barbarous  sense.  Men  cannot  slay  evil  by 
killing  each  other.  But  I  believe  in  war  in  the 
moral  sense  with  all  my  heart.  It  will  be  a 
sad  day  for  the  world  when  we  grow  so  effem- 
inate that  the  spirit  of  opposition  to  wrong 
dies  out  of  our  hearts,  when  the  readiness  to 
sacrifice  which  led  men  to  offer  their  lives  on 
the  flaming  altar  of  battle,  counting  loss  but 
gain,  shall  give  place  in  their  degenerate  hearts 
to  the  desire  to  live  at  ease  and  to  be  let  alone. 

"  In  this  rubric  lo !  the  past  is  lettered, 
Strike  the  red  words  out,  we  strike  the  glory: 


50  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Leave  the  sacred  color  on  the  pages. 
Pages  of  the  past  that  teach  the  future. 

On  that  scripture 
Yet  shall  young  souls  take  the  oath  of  service. 
God  end  war!     But  when  brute  war  is  ended 
Yet  shall  there  be  many  a  noble  soldier, 
Many  a  noble  battle  worth  the  winning. 
Many  a  hopeless  battle  worth  the  losing. 

Life  is  battle, 
Life  is  battle  even  to  the  sunset !  " 

Life  is  battle.  Battle  for  the  integrity  of 
our  own  souls.  Battle  for  the  betterment  of 
the  age  in  which  we  live.  Many  are  the  oppor- 
tunities of  service.  That  brave  physician  who 
has  just  given  his  fine  young  life  in  battle  with 
a  grim  and  terrible  disease  was  as  much  a  sol- 
dier as  any  belted  knight  who  ever  drew  sword, 
as  much  a  victor  as  any  warrior  who  ever  laid 
down  his  life  amid  the  smoke  of  battle. 

The  time  will  never  come  when  there  will  not 
be  the  necessity  for  battle,  battle  in  our  own 
souls,  battle  for  the  great  causes  of  humanity. 
Where  do  we  get  the  spirit  of  service  and  sac- 
rifice, and  conflict  .f'  The  world  gets  it  from 
the  Bible,  from  the  example  of  the  Christian 
church  throughout  the  ages,  from  the  glory 
which  streams  from  Calvary.  We  think  it  a 
small  thing,  sometimes,  the  service  of  the 
church  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  seems  to  many  of 
us,  I  doubt  not,  a  prosaic  and  a  formal  thing. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  61 

I  tell  you  that  your  faithfulness  to  the  church, 
your  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  Jesus  Christ,  your 
service,  however  small  and  humble,  counts  in 
the  conflict  which  goes  on  ceaselessly  with  the 
powers  of  evil.  For  the  church  is  the  great 
organized  agency  which  keeps  faith  alive,  which 
keeps  the  fighting  and  achieving  spirit  alive  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  Let  the  church  die,  let  it 
be  neglected  even,  and  resistance  to  evil  will  die 
also.  However  humble  and  obscure  your  place 
and  your  service  may  seem  to  be,  nevertheless  if 
you  are  faithful,  you  are  fighting  in  the  ranks 
of  the  Redeemer  and  the  victor's  crown  will  be 
yours. 

Let  no  one  think  because  I  have  said  that  this 
battle  against  evil  must  be  renewed  with  every 
individual  and  every  generation  that  it  need  be 
or  is  in  any  sense  a  losing  battle.  While  sin 
flashes  out  with  the  same  old  demonic  power  in 
every  generation  and  in  every  heart,  this  does 
not  mean  that  the  world  belongs  to  the  beast. 
The  world  has  been  redeemed  by  Jesus  Christ 
and  it  belongs  to  God.  Your  soul  belongs  to 
God  and  not  to  the  devil. 

"  This  world  is  Christ's  world.  Ever  since  his 
feet  pressed  its  stony  paths,  ever  since  his  voice 
stirred  its  conscious  air  and  his  blessed  hands  broke 
its  loaves  and  caressed  its  lilies  the  world  has  be- 
longed to  Him." 


52  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

"  The  world  we  live  in  wholly  is  redeemed. 
Not  man  alone,  but  all  that  man  holds  dear. 
His  orchards  and  his  maize,  forget-me-nots. 
And  heart's-ease  in  his  garden,  and  the  wild 
Aerial  blossoms  of  the  untamed  wood. 
That  makes  the  savagery  so  homelike  —  all 
Have    felt    Christ's    sweet   love   watering   their 

roots. 
There  are  no  Gentile  oaks,  no  pagan  pines. 
The  grass  beneath  our  feet  is  Christian  grass, 
The  wayside  weed  is  sacred  unto  him.*' 

Translate  the  poetry  into  prose  and  it  means 
that  the  powers  of  light  are  stronger  than  the 
hosts  of  darkness.  If  there  are  principalities 
and  powers  of  evil  and  spiritual  wickedness  in 
high  places  there  are  also  legions  of  angels  and 
principalities  and  powers  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  And  they  are  all  on  our  side.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  hopelessness  in  this  conflict. 
It  is  a  matter  of  psychology,  of  practical  sci- 
entific observation,  that  a  man  cannot  get  so 
low  in  the  human  scale  that  the  power  of 
Christ's  love  cannot  lift  him  from  the  depths 
of  hell  to  the  heights  of  heaven.  Man  was  not 
made  for  hell.  He  was  made  a  little  lower  than 
God  and  companion  of  the  stars.  Let  us  fight 
valiantly  then  for  our  birthright.  Let  us  come 
out  of  our  narrow  and  selfish  way  of  living, 
and  go  forth  in  the  strength  of  God  and  the 
power  of  his  might,  to  the  conflict  and  to  vic- 
tory. 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  BLIND 

For  he  that  lacketh  these  things  is  blind,  seeing  only 
what  is  near. —  II  Peter  1:9. 

The  ancient  city  of  Chalcedon,  situated  on 

the  Asiatic  shore  of  the  Bosphorus  opposite  the 

site  of  the  later  city  of  Byzantium,  the  modern 

Constantinople,   was   pronounced   by   a   Greek 

oracle  to  be  the  '*  city  of  the  blind,"  because  its 

founders,    with    a    beautiful    and    commanding 

situation  just  before  them,  across  the  narrow 

straits,  chose  a  situation  in  every  way  mean, 

inferior,    and    unsatisfactory.     There   are   few 

cities  in  the  world  which  have  not  at  one  time 

or  another  deserved  this  contemptuous  epithet. 

When  the  great  fire  of  1666  destroyed  the  old 

city  of  London,  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  perhaps 

the  greatest  genius  in  the  field  of  architecture 

the  world  has  ever  seen,  proposed  a  noble  and 

comprehensive  plan   for  the  rebuilding  of  the 

city.     From  the  great  cathedral,  which  is  his 

splendid  monument,  as  a  center,  broad,  splendid 

avenues  were  to  radiate,  the  great  main  arteries 

of   the  city's  life.     His  plan  was  not  only  a 
53 


54  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

vision  of  a  beautiful  London,  but  it  was  thor- 
oughly business-like  and  practicable.  No 
owner,  he  reckoned,  would  lose  a  foot  of  ground, 
there  would  be  an  immense  appreciation  of 
property  values  which  would  more  than  pay  the 
cost  of  construction,  the  city  would  be  healthier 
and  cleaner.  This  broad,  statesman-like  plan 
was  thwarted  by  the  selfishness  and  blindness 
of  property  owners,  who  feared  that  in  some 
way  their  individual  interests  might  suffer.  In 
the  words  of  an  old  historian,  "  The  only,  and 
as  it  happened  insurmountable  Difficulty  re- 
maining, was  the  Obstinate  Averseness  on  the 
part  of  the  Citizens  to  alter  their  old  Properties 
and  to  secede  from  building  their  Houses  again 
on  the  old  Ground  and  Foundations." 

Through  the  dark  and  narrow  and  tortuous 
streets  which  are  the  monuments  today  of  that 
ancient  stupidity  and  obstinacy  and  blindness, 
three-quarters  of  a  million  of  people  and  a  vast 
tide  of  business  traffic  make,  six  days  in  the 
week,  a  slow  and  perilous  passage.  Business  is 
choked  and  impeded,  lives  are  lost  almost  daily 
because  of  these  conditions  imposed  upon  mod- 
ern London  by  the  selfishness  of  the  past.  Lon- 
don pays  the  heavy  price,  a  price  which  can  be 
definitely  reckoned  in  terms  of  millions  of 
pounds  sterling  yearly  and  a  great  sacrifice  of 
life  and  limb  for  the  "  obstinate  averseness  "  of 
its   citizens   to   look   at   anything  except   that 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  65 

which  was  near,  that  which  concerned  their  own 
individual  interests.  Old  London  was  a  city 
of  the  blind. 

This  blindness  in  respect  to  the  larger  inter- 
ests of  the  community  is  by  no  means,  however, 
confined  to  ancient  times.  It  is  to  a  marked 
degree  characteristic  of  our  own  times  and  our 
own  civilization  here  in  America.  A  recent  edi- 
torial utterance  on  this  subject  reads  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  The  American  people  have  not  yet  mastered 
the  art  of  looking  ahead.  They  can  see,  to  be  sure, 
next  week,  next  year,  or  occasionally  a  decade,  but 
beyond  that  the  problem  is  lightly  left  to  prosper- 
ity. As  a  result,  we  reap  every  day  the  blasted 
harvest  of  our  own  folly.  We  do  not  make  allow- 
ance for  the  growth  of  the  community  or  the  ad- 
vance of  inventive  genius.  We  build  always  for  the 
present  with  a  small  plus  sign," 

This  states  the  case  none  too  strongly.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  often  build  with  a  minus 
sign  instead  of  with  even  a  small  plus  sign. 
We  build  in  a  way  which  actually  so  embar- 
rasses and  impedes  the  future  that  our  work, 
poor  and  shoddy  and  inadequate,  has  to  be  ut- 
terly destroyed  before  any  advance  can  be  made. 
We  build  like  the  blind,  seeing  only  what  is 
near.  We  build  in  wood  instead  of  in  stone 
and  we  pay  the  price  of  our  folly  in  an  appal- 
ling loss  by  fire.     We  build  all  our  public  utili- 


66  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ties,  streets,  school  houses,  water  systems,  sew- 
ers, on  a  basis  of  economy  rather  than  of  wise 
forethought,  and  we  pay  the  immense  price  of 
tearing  down  and  rebuilding.  There  are  few 
American  cities  which  have  not  paid  three  or 
four  times  for  reconstruction  of  public  utilities, 
which  ought  to  have  been  built  originally  for  , 
the  generations  and  not  for  the  passing  day. 
In  all  our  cities  we  are  struggling  with  prob- 
lems which  ought  never  to  have  come  into  exist- 
ence. Our  congested  and  inconvenient  public 
highways,  our  unlovely  and  dangerous  slums, 
our  inadequate  public  buildings,  are  inherit- 
ances from  a  past  which  thought  itself  wise  and 
prudent  and  economical,  but  which  was  really 
blind  and  extravagant,  in  the  heavy  burdens 
which  it  thoughtlessly  laid  upon  posterity. 
There  are  those  at  the  present  in  every  city 
who  would  be  just  as  blind  and  short-sighted  in 
regard  to  the  future.  There  are  always  those 
who  vehemently  oppose  any  great  public  im- 
provement, any  attempt  to  embark  upon  a 
broad  and  constructive  policy  of  city  planning, 
because  of  the  immediate  outlay  which  is  in- 
volved. These  people  are  like  blind  moles  tun- 
nelling in  the  darkness,  impelled  only  by  the 
desire  for  the  gratification  of  immediate  eco- 
nomic needs,  but  revealing  no  consistent  plan 
or  purpose  in  this  effort. 

I  am  aware  that  the  pulpit  is  not  the  place 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  67 

for  a  full  discussion  of  wise  and  prudent  city 
planning  on  the  material  side.  It  is  the  place, 
however,  for  a  consideration  of  the  fundamental 
moral  and  ethical  aspects  which  underlie  this 
situation  in  our  modem  communities.  The 
right  management  and  government  and  devel- 
opment of  a  city  is  not  simply  a  business  propo- 
sition. That  is  where  many  reformers  are  mak- 
ing a  mistake.  They  seem  to  think  that  all  the 
gross  evils  of  American  municipal  government 
will  be  overcome  if  only  we  can  place  the  city 
on  a  strictly  business  basis.  They  forget  that 
business  as  well  as  politics  may  become  corrupt. 
The  government  of  a  city  is  essentially  a  prob- 
lem in  righteousness.  Public  office  in  a  city 
is  not  a  matter  of  allegiance  to  a  party,  nor 
primarily,  integrity  of  business  management. 
It  strikes  deeper  than  that.  It  is  a  matter  of 
the  highest  type  of  moral  obligation,  of  utterly 
faithful  service,  not  only  to  the  present,  but  to 
coming  generations.  The  city  is  a  great  en- 
tity, a  great  personality,  gathering  up  within 
itself  the  needs  and  the  aspirations,  the  tempta- 
tions and  the  sin,  the  hopes  and  the  fears  of  all 
its  myriad  people.  If  the  problem  of  right- 
eousness and  just  dealing,  of  mutual  rights  and 
obligations  between  man  and  man,  between 
neighbor  and  neighbor  is  an  important,  the  all- 
important,  religious  question,  what  shall  we  say 
of  this  problem  when  it  relates  to  all  the  people 


58  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

of  a  great  city  in  their  dealings  one  with  an- 
other? It  is  high  time  that  we  take  these  most 
vitally  important  questions  which  relate  to  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  people  out  of  the  arena 
of  so-called  practical  politics  and  place  them 
where  they  belong,  in  the  moral  and  religious 
and  judicial  sphere.  Any  question  which  in- 
volves the  rights  of  others  is  a  moral  question 
to  be  settled  ultimately  not  by  convenience,  nor 
even  by  judicial  procedure,  but  by  the  appli- 
cation of  the  principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  by  the  eternal  principles  of  brother- 
hood and  love. 

Consider  this  question  then  of  the  right  plan- 
ning and  development  of  the  life  of  the  city, 
even  on  the  material  side.  The  blindness  which 
provides  only  for  the  present,  which  builds  upon 
consideration  of  expediency  only,  is  a  moral 
blindness.  Its  failure  to  make  adequate  pro- 
vision for  future  growth  and  progress  is  not 
only  obstinacy  and  short-sightedness,  it  is 
actually  a  sin.  The  future  has  rights  which 
we  are  bound  to  respect.  We  have  no  moral 
right  to  consult  our  own  convenience,  our  own 
financial  advantage  when  the  community  is  con- 
cerned. The  old  individualism  served  its  pur- 
pose splendidly  when  it  spoke  in  the  guns  of 
Lexington  and  Concord.  It  served  its  purpose 
when  it  secured  forever  and  inalienably  on  this 
continent  the  right  of  the  individual  to  be  con- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  59 

suited  and  heard  in  all  matters  of  public  con- 
cern. But  individualism  in  any  aggressive  and 
selfish  manifestation  must  give  way  to  the 
larger  considerations  of  the  communal  life. 
The  city  is  not  built  for  the  satisfaction  of  any 
one  individual,  to  enable  him  to  do  business  con- 
veniently, to  amass  wealth,  to  live  in  comfort. 
The  city  grows  out  of  the  toil  and  sacrifice  of 
all  the  people,  and  all  the  people  should  be  con- 
sidered in  its  planning  and  in  its  growth.  It 
is  just  as  important  that  the  operative  of  the 
factory  should  be  provided  with  means  of  reach- 
ing his  work  safely  and  conveniently  and 
quickly,  as  that  thoroughfares  should  be  con- 
structed for  the  rapid  transit  of  the  automobile 
of  the  millionaire  from  city  to  city.  The  city 
of  the  past  has  been  built  in  accordance  with 
the  caprice  of  the  individual,  upon  a  selfish,  eco- 
nomic basis  wholly.  The  result  has  been  a  hud- 
dle of  tenements  and  palaces,  of  slums  and 
parks,  of  inconvenient  streets,  of  misplaced 
public  buildings.  Private  greed  and  individual 
indifference  have  made  it  the  breeding  place  of 
pestilence  and  a  sink  of  moral  depravity.  It 
has  calmly  conveyed  death  to  its  people  in  pol- 
luted water  and  poisoned  the  very  air  which  its 
children  breathe.  Such  a  city  is  an  offence  to 
God  and  a  curse  to  man.  The  causes  for  the 
failure  of  adequate  city  planning  go  deeper  than 
the  elemental   selfishness   of   men.     The   causes 


60  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

may  be  found  in  lack  of  spiritual  vision,  and  in- 
spired imagination,  in  the  failure  of  men  to 
measure  up  to  the  divine  standard  which  God 
has  set  before  them.  The  apostle  in  our  text 
indicates  exactly  the  state  of  failure  which  re- 
sults in  the  hideousness  and  squalor  of  the  city. 
"  He  that  lacketh  these  things  is  blind,  seeing 
only  that  which  is  near."  Spiritual  blindness, 
moral  near-sightedness,  lack  of  prophetic  vi- 
sion, these  are  the  underlying  causes  of  the  piti- 
ful failure  which  our  cities  present.  Go  back 
to  the  Old  Testament  prophecies  and  you  find 
at  once  that  the  dreams  of  the  prophet  included 
not  only  the  moral  regeneration  of  the  people, 
but  the  transformation  of  physical  conditions. 
The  substance  of  all  prophecy  is  the  working 
out  of  God's  plan  both  in  the  moral  and  in  the 
material  spheres.  God  expects  us  to  have 
vision  and  imagination.  His  plan  in  its  per- 
fection and  its  utility  and  its  beauty  lies  before 
us  everywhere.  It  is  a  plan  which  is  not  only 
perfect  in  its  detail,  but  progressive  in  its  ac- 
complishment. It  is  a  plan  which  is  moving 
on  toward  its  preconceived  fulfillment  through 
the  ages.  When  we  create  anything  we  are  en- 
gaged in  a  divine  task,  and  we  must  perform  it 
with  the  inspired  vision.  We  have  no  right  to 
be  slovenly,  to  build  for  the  moment's  profit, 
regardless  of  the  future.  We  have  no  right  to 
build  that  which  is  an  offence  to  the  eye,  that 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  61 

which  is  shoddy  in  construction,  because  it  is 
cheaper  so  to  build.  What  task  can  be  more 
sublime  than  the  building  of  a  city,  a  place  in 
which  the  divine  soul  of  man  works  out  on  earth 
its  immortal  destiny.  Do  we  realize  enough 
that  what  we  build  in  the  city  is  the  expression 
of  ourselves,  by  which  we  shall  be  infallibly 
judged  by  the  generations.?  We  put  our  char- 
acters into  brick  and  stone,  into  our  public 
buildings.  What  will  be  the  judgment,  do  you 
think,  of  a  nobler  race  than  ours,  upon  many 
of  our  American  cities.?  How  many  of  them 
contain  anything  which  expresses  an  imper- 
ishably  sublime  and  beautiful  spirit,  which 
stands  for  sacrifices  and  honor  and  truth  and 
righteousness,  and  not  merely  for  the  dollar? 
Even  our  churches  in  many  instances  do  not  ex- 
press that  noble  aspiration  of  David,  "  I  will 
not  give  unto  the  Lord  that  which  cost  me  noth- 
ing." They  do  not  stand  like  the  cathedrals  of 
Europe  as  the  ultimate  and  consummate  expres- 
sion of  communal  sacrifice  and  devotion,  wit- 
nessing to  the  ages  the  splendor  of  faith  and  the 
glory  of  service.  I  wonder  if  we  really  have  so 
little  sense  of  civic  pride,  so  little  comprehen- 
sion of  the  long  results  of  time,  so  little  com- 
munal honor,  that  we  feel  no  sense  of  shame 
in  the  adverse  judgments,  the  bitter  censure  of 
the  coming  generations  over  our  failure.?  And 
yet   a   city   may  be  so  splendid,  so   regal,   so 


62  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

crowded  with  the  monuments  of  inspired  gen- 
ius, that  it  does  not  suffer  even  when  compared 
with  God's  architecture  of  the  everlasting  hills. 
Of  the  city  of  Verona  Ruskin  wrote : 

"  There  is  no  necessity  felt  to  dwell  on  the  blue 
river  or  the  burning  hills.  The  heart  and  eye  have 
enough  to  do  in  the  streets  of  the  city  itself.  They 
are  contented  there.  Nay,  they  sometimes  turn 
from  the  natural  scenery,  as  if  too  savage  and  soli- 
tary, to  dwell  with  a  deeper  interest  on  the  palace 
walls  which  cast  their  shade  upon  the  streets,  and 
the  crowd  of  towers  that  rise  out  of  that  shadow 
into  the  depth  of  the  sky." 

A  city  which  has  no  pride,  no  vision,  no  imag- 
ination, which  sees  only  that  which  is  near, 
which  is  concerned  only  with  the  largest  returns 
of  capital  regardless  of  the  great  divine  princi- 
ples of  beauty  and  order,  regardless  of  the  best 
interests  of  the  whole  community,  that  city  is 
a  city  of  the  blind.  But  there  is  a  moral  blind- 
ness deeper  yet.  It  is  perfectly  true  that 
beauty  and  orderliness  do  not  make  a  perfect 
city,  or  rather  a  city  may  be  made  glorious  in 
its  external  aspect  through  the  vision  and  sac- 
rifice of  one  generation  only  to  relapse  into 
moral  degradation  in  the  next.  Venice,  for 
centuries  "  a  maiden  city  bright  and  free,"  fell 
at  last  because  of  the  moral  blindness  of  the 
people,    and   the   ancient    spirit   of   liberty    so 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  63 

strong  in  the  people  of  Florence  was  crushed 
at  last,  while  the  palaces  and  statues  erected  by 
the  immortal  genius  of  her  sons  looked  down 
upon  the  ashes  of  her  former  greatness  in  mel- 
ancholy splendor. 

A  city  is  blind  when  the  spirit  of  enterprise 
and  trade  overshadows  the  interests  of  the  mind 
and  of  the  heart.  A  city  is  blind  when  it  fails 
in  any  respect  in  its  duty  of  educating  its  chil- 
dren. The  city  can  afford  to  make  any  sacri- 
fice, it  can  afford  to  practice  economy  in  any 
department,  rather  than  withhold  a  single 
penny  of  the  sum  necessary  to  make  its  educa- 
tional system  as  perfect  as  human  effort  can 
devise.  It  is  blind  unless  it  exalts  to  the  high- 
est degree  the  dignity  and  the  moral  worth  of 
the  teaching  profession,  and  provides  a  com- 
plete training  for  the  poorest  child  within  its 
borders. 

A  city  is  morally  blind  which  permits  evil  to 
go  unrebuked  and  unpunished,  which,  instead 
of  protecting  its  children  against  every  form 
of  vice,  actually  protects  vice  for  the  sake  of 
the  financial  profit.  A  city  is  blind  which  can- 
not see  that  there  can  be  no  financial  return 
from  the  licensing  of  any  form  of  vice  which 
can  pay  for  one  single  soul  which  is  ruined  by 
that  vice.  Of  all  the  products  of  a  city,  the 
human  product  is  the  most  costly,  the  most 
precious.     All    the    commerce    of    a    city,    the 


64  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

product  of  all  its  workshops  and  factories,  can- 
not weigh  for  a  moment  in  the  balance  with  a 
single  immortal  soul.  Any  city  which  neglects 
the  human  product,  while  it  enlarges  its  fac- 
tories and  extends  its  streets,  is  totally  lacking 
in  spiritual  vision. 

Finally,  that  city  is  blind  which  neglects  the 
source  of  moral  worth  and  spiritual  power,  the 
church.  The  church  has  been  at  times,  itself 
blind.  It  has  often  lamentably  failed  of  car- 
rying out  its  divine  mission,  but  it  has  always 
been  and  will  always  be  the  source  of  light  and 
strength  and  freedom.  What  is  the  great 
temptation  of  the  city.?  Not  simply  that  cer- 
tain of  its  children  shall  utterly  degrade  them- 
selves in  the  unspeakable  filth  of  its  worst  vices. 
The  greatest  danger  is  that  life  shall  become  so 
absorbingly  interesting  and  vital  on  the  ma- 
terial side,  that  the  children  of  light,  the  in- 
heritors af  the  great  traditions  of  the  fathers, 
shall  lose  their  faith  and  their  insight  and  their 
vision  and  become  spiritually  blind,  seeing  only 
that  which  is  near,  thinking  only  of  the  pres- 
ent, forgetting  the  obligation  of  service. 

"  No  more  we  build  as  they  who  built  of  old : 
Stone  upon  stone,  in  solemn  order  set, 
Prayer  upon  prayer;  the  gilded  minaret, 
The  sculptured  spire,  the  stern  defiant  hold, 
Each  slowly  reared,  to  stand  while  years  unfold. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  65 

Then  builders  knew  not  haste,  nor  the  keen  fret 
That  spurs  our  toil,  but  all  in  patience  met. 
They  gave  long  lives  to  beauty  long  foretold. 

We  fling  across  the  clouds  a  fabric  sheer. 
Deep  in  the  earth  our  hidden  pillars  drive; 

Lo,  an  adventure :  towers  to  greet  the  night ! 

The  forces  of  the  lightning  and  the  mere 

Are    slaves    we    conquer    that    our    dreams    may 
thrive ; 

We  rest  —  in  wonder  —  but  without  delight.". 


That,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  true  indictment  of 
the  present  age.  We  build  wonderful  fabrics. 
We  possess  the  power  of  the  genii  of  Aladdin's 
lamp,  but  we  do  these  marvellous  things  with- 
out the  true  joy  of  service.  We  see  only  that 
which  is  near,  that  which  our  own  hands  have 
built.  We  lack  the  patience,  the  serene  joy, 
the  inward  satisfaction  of  those  who  build  not 
for  today,  but  for  the  ages.  Let  us  pray, 
then,  that  our  eyes  may  be  opened  to  the  long 
results  of  time  as  well  as  to  the  near.  Let  us 
pray  for  vision,  for  imagination,  for  insight, 
for  the  prophetic  spirit,  that  we  may  no  longer 
walk  in  the  darkness  but  walk  in  the  light  of  a 
divine  radiance. 


VI 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  AND  CIVIC 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 

For  he  tcmght  them  as  one  having  authority,  and  not 
as  the  scribes. —  Matt.  7:29. 

Of  all  the  great  agencies  which  are  shaping 
the  life  of  the  American  commonwealth,  no  one 
is  of  more  importance  than  the  public  school. 
I  would  almost  say  that  it  overshadows  in  its 
significance  all  other  agencies  combined.  It  is 
unfortunate,  but  it  is  true,  that  the  influence 
and  authority  of  the  American  home  over  the 
children  bom  into  it  has  steadily  waned.  In 
many  homes  the  child  is  not  much  more  than  a 
boarder,  and  an  unwelcome  and  disagreeable 
one  at  that.  The  influence  of  church  and  Sun- 
day school  is  exerted  for  an  insignificant  period 
of  time.  We  gather  the  children  of  Christian 
people  together  for  a  half  hour  of  actual  study 
each  week  and  we  call  this  gathering,  with  un- 
conscious humor,  a  school.  It  accomplishes 
wonderful  results  in  view  of  its  limitations,  but 
consider  how  pitifully  inadequate  is  its  time  and 
its  opportunity.  There  remains,  then,  as  the 
66 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  67 

great  formative  influence  of  our  national  life, 
dominating,  overshadowing  all  others,  the  pub- 
lic school.  To  this  institution  we  give  the  ex- 
clusive control  of  our  children  during  the  larger 
part  of  their  waking  hours.  This  exclusive  in- 
fluence continues  during  the  most  critical  and 
decisive  period  of  life,  those  unspeakably  sig- 
nificant years  of  adolescence,  in  which  habits 
are  formed,  the  hidden  tendencies  of  life  devel- 
oped, and  the  whole  character  is  moulded  as 
clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter.  I  have  said 
that  the  influence  of  the  city  is  to  be  decisive 
in  our  national  life.  What  makes  the  city.^* 
How  is  its  character  formed.'^  By  the  men 
and  women  who  live  in  its  homes  and  engage  in 
its  industries  and  control  its  government. 
What  is  behind  the  life  of  the  city.?  What  is 
the  decisive  influence  which  moulds  and  shapes 
its  citizenship.?  On  the  material  side,  unques- 
tionably, the  public  school.  No  other  influence 
is  half  as  pervasive,  no  other  institution  is  half 
as  important,  as  a  factor  in  citizenship.  I  be- 
lieve in  the  public  school  with  all  my  heart  and 
soul.  I  most  sincerely  honor  and  respect  that 
great  army  of  talented,  devoted,  self-sacrificing 
men  and  women,  who,  in  the  face  of  many  dis- 
couragements and  limitations,  often  inade- 
quately and  meanly  rewarded,  in  view  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  service  which  they  render,  are 
giving  their  lives  to  this  high  calling.     No  class 


68  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

is  more  deserving  of  support  and  sympathy 
and  consideration  than  the  members  of  this 
great  fraternity.  I  believe,  also,  that  the  pub- 
lic school  stands  today  as  the  corner  stone  of 
the  republic,  the  conservator  of  democracy,  the 
crucible  in  which  all  nationalities,  all  classes, 
are  fused  into  one  people,  and  that  a  character- 
istically American  people.  The  assimilation  of 
other  races  by  this  republic  is  one  of  the  mira- 
cles of  history,  and  the  credit  is  due  almost  ex- 
exclusively  to  the  enlightening,  uplifting,  patri- 
otic service  of  the  public  school. 

But  this  profound  belief  in  the  value  and  im- 
portance of  the  public  school  should  not  make 
us  blind  to  its  deficiencies,  nor  less  earnest  in 
our  desire  to  improve  in  every  way  possible  an 
admirable  system.  The  public  school,  like  the 
church  or  any  other  great  institution,  has  its 
defects,  and  the  greatest  of  these  in  my  opin- 
ion is  this:  The  objective  point  to  which  the 
whole  system  is  directed,  is  scientific  and  not 
moral.  I  use  the  word  moral  of  course  in  no 
narrow,  restricted  sense,  but  in  the  broad  sig- 
nificance of  the  word,  in  which  it  stands  for 
those  great  spiritual  entities  which  are  over 
against  the  material  life  of  the  world.  The 
public  school  is  materialistic  in  its  aim.  Its 
purpose  is  avowedly  to  impart  information  and 
not  primarily  to  develop  character.  I  do  not 
say  for  a  moment  that  it  never  develops  char- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  69 

acter,  but  that  is  not  its  avowed  object.  Its 
machinery  is  designed  to  provide  as  much  in- 
formation as  the  average  child  is  able  to  assimi- 
late during  a  given  period,  and  there  its  re- 
sponsibility ends.  The  new  importance  which 
is  being  given  to  technical,  commercial  and  vo- 
cational training  in  response  to  the  demand 
that  education  be  made  practical  as  well  as 
theoretical,  tends  to  emphasize  the  purely  utili- 
tarian aim  of  the  public  school.  The  state 
aims  to  provide  the  child  with  technical  infor- 
mation, with  the  tools  of  his  trade,  and  there 
its  responsibility  ends. 

This  theory  of  public  education  is  based,  I 
most  firmly  believe,  upon  mistaken  premises. 
First,  in  regard  to  the  content  of  truth  even 
from  the  scientific  standpoint.  The  public 
school  system  in  this  country  has  grown  up 
during  that  great  period  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion and  discovery,  which  has  concerned  itself 
chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  with  material  phenomena. 
The  universe  has  been  reduced  to  a  system,  it 
has  been  classified  and  catalogued  and  arranged, 
and  this  work  has  been  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance. It  is  the  basis  of  our  modern  civilization 
upon  the  material  side.  But  we  make  a  fatal 
mistake,  when  we  come  to  believe  that  the  data" 
of  science  constitute  the  sum  total  of  desirable 
and  necessary  knowledge.  The  whole  vast 
realm  of  the  spiritual  life  of  humanity  lies  out- 


70  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

side  the  field  of  materialistic  science,  and  yet  it 
is  just  as  real  and  significant  as  the  material 
phenomena  of  the  universe.  The  fundamental 
conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  of  justice  and 
injustice,  of  truth  and  falsehood,  do  not  belong 
to  the  field  of  religious  inquiry  alone.  They 
find  their  exemplification  in  the  most  practical 
life  of  the  world :  in  trade,  in  politics,  in  all  the 
great  complicated  relationships  of  our  civic  life. 
The  science  which  is  so  short  sighted  as  to  leave 
out  the  great  ethical  standards,  the  actions  and 
reactions  of  conduct,  which  confines  itself  to 
the  material  and  which  ignores  the  existence  of 
the  desires  and  passions  of  men  in  their  inter- 
play upon  physical  phenomena,  is  not  worthy 
the  name  of  science.  The  teaching  which  care- 
fully enumerates  and  describes  the  bones  of  the 
human  skeleton  and  the  dead  tissues  of  the 
body  and  ignores  the  acts  of  the  living  man, 
the  skeleton  clothed  with  reason  and  endowed 
with  divine  energy  for  good  or  evil,  is  not 
worthy  the  name  of  teaching.  Could  there  be 
any  possible  objection  to  the  teaching  in  our 
public  schools,  for  example,  that  the  same  exact 
and  invariable  laws  which  apply  in  physics  and 
chemistry  apply  also  in  the  realm  of  conduct.? 
Would  the  tender  religious  susceptibilities  of 
any  one  be  hurt  if  children  were  taught  the  fun- 
damental conceptions  of  truth  and  honesty  and 
obedience.'^     When  the  tables  of  measures  are 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  71 

taught  as  a  part  of  the  necessary  equipment 
of  a  child,  would  it  be  violating  any  known 
principle  of  pedagogy  to  teach  that  a  false  bal- 
ance is  an  abomination  to  the  Lord,  and  also 
rank  injustice  to  the  community  as  well? 

Are  we  following  any  known  and  successful 
precedent  in  thus  discriminating  between  what 
is  purely  scientific  and  what  is  moral  instruc- 
tion and  rejecting  the  latter?  Far  from  it. 
I  quote  from  a  leading  authority : 

*'  We  have  the  only  great  school  system  the  world 
has  ever  seen  which  does  not  include  a  definite  and 
formal  instruction  in  religion,  with  the  single  ex- 
ception of  France,  which  relinquished  it  in  1882, 
and  France  has  put  in  the  place  of  its  religious  in- 
struction the  most  systematic  and  thorough  moral 
and  civic  instruction  which  the  world  has  ever  seen, 
and  is  today  working  with  unflagging  zeal  to  make 
the  moral  instruction  the  most  efficient  and  vital 
part  of  its  whole  curriculum." 

Even  France,  then,  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  regard  as  wholly  materialistic,  does  not  hold 
to  our  mistaken  theory  that  the  whole  content 
of  the  truth  which  the  state  is  under  obligation 
to  impart  is  to  be  found  in  scientific  data.  Ma- 
terialistic France  according  to  this  authority 
"  is  working  with  unflagging  zeal  to  make  moral 
instruction  the  most  eff'ectual  and  vital  part 
of  the  whole  curriculum."     Our  own  nation,  of 


72  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

all  the  countries  of  the  world,  without  precedent 
and  without  any  sound  scientific  basis  for  its 
theory,  is  conducting  the  dangerous  experiment 
of  using  a  system  of  instruction  which  ignores 
the  moral  element  of  life. 

I  am  not  pleading  for  any  system  of  religious 
instruction  in  the  public  schools,  but  why  on 
a  scientific  basis  should  the  Bible  be  excluded? 
It  is  not  the  property  of  any  sect.  It  is  the 
great  source  of  the  moral  and  ethical  develop- 
ment of  Western  civilization.  It  is  the  great- 
est book  of  the  ages.  Its  influence  runs  through 
all  our  English  literature,  through  all  our  mod- 
ern civilization.  It  is  bound  up  with  our  his- 
tory, our  art,  our  speech.  If  we  study  the 
Greek  classics  and  the  Greek  mythology,  why 
should  we  reject  the  prophets  of  Israel  and  the 
Book  of  Psalms.?  Jesus  is  admittedly  the  su- 
preme figure  of  history.  He  is  not  the  prop- 
erty of  any  sect.  We  may  teach  our  children 
the  lives  of  Alexander  and  Caesar  and  Napoleon, 
but  we  may  not  teach  the  child  anything  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  nor  study,  even  without  note 
or  comment,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  We 
have  no  wish  to  bring  any  form  of  religious  con- 
troversy into  the  school,  but  there  is  much  in 
regard  to  Jesus,  much  of  the  Bible,  which  is 
above  and  beyond  controversy,  recognized  as 
such  by  Catholic  and  Protestant,  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile.    It  is  at  least  as  important  as  a  part  of 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  73 

human  knowledge,  as  a  study  of  the  habits  of 
butterflies  and  a  precise  knowledge  of  the 
boundaries  of  Patagonia.  It  should  be  in- 
cluded in  any  comprehensive  system  of  educa- 
tion, because  it  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  sum 
of  human  knowledge  as  the  multiplication  table. 
The  stream  cannot  rise  higher  than  its  source. 
If  we  exclude  the  Bible  and  all  forms  of  moral 
and  ethical  training  from  the  schools,  how  can 
we  expect  a  product  expressed  in  terms  of  right- 
eousness and  good  citizenship.? 

We  are  in  error  again,  I  believe,  in  our  esti- 
mate of  the  end  and  object  of  education  from 
the  personal  standpoint.  We  have  made  it 
wholly  utilitarian.  We  fit  the  child,  we  say,  as 
completely  and  as  expeditiously  as  possible 
for  the  practical  duties  of  life.  There  is  al- 
ways a  pressure  to  remove  the  classics  even, 
from  the  curriculum,  on  the  ground  that  they 
promote  culture  only,  and  culture  is  an  ex- 
pensive luxury  which  the  public  school  cannot 
be  expected  to  provide.  We  are  proceeding 
here  again  upon  a  wholly  mistaken  basis.  The 
ultimate  end  of  education  is  not  simply  the  ac- 
quirement of  knowledge,  but  the  attainment  of 
knowledge  plus  character.  The  moral  element 
cannot  be  left  out  of  any  estimate  of  person- 
ality. It  is  the  particular  function  of  the 
Church,  it  is  true,  to  teach  religion,  to  regener- 
ate  humanitv,   to   save   men   from   their   sins. 


74  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Does  the  state  dare,  however,  to  demand  prac- 
tically all  the  child's  time  during  the  formative 
years,  teach  a  colorless  mass  of  knowledge  from 
which  even  the  ethical  and  moral  elements  have 
been  extracted,  and  then  turn  the  product  over 
to  the  Church  for  regeneration?  The  public 
school  should  provide  a  basis,  at  least,  for  the 
moral  life.  If  it  does  not  concern  itself  about 
the  faith  of  its  citizens,  it  should  be  concerned 
to  produce  good  citizenship.  Knowledge  alone 
will  not  do  even  that.  Take  your  prize  scholar. 
He  comes,  we  will  say,  from  a  home  where  he 
has  had  no  moral  training  whatever.  He  has  a 
quick  and  retentive  mind,  which  has  satisfacto- 
rily absorbed  a  large  amount  of  information  — 
like  a  sponge.  You  have,  in  addition  to  infor- 
mation, given  him  a  thorough  technical  train- 
ing, so  that  he  graduates  a  machinist,  ready 
for  his  trade,  and  you  point  with  pride  to  the 
finished  product.  But  suppose  he  finds  a  ma- 
chine shop  dull,  and  his  trade  stupid  ?  Suppose 
he  prefers  to  exercise  his  mechanical  ability  at 
night  with  a  jimmy  and  a  dark  lantern,  in  ac- 
quiring the  property  of  other  people?  The 
knowledge  which  you  have  given  him  without 
character,  makes  him  the  more  formidable  foe 
of  society.  The  more  clever  a  man,  the  more 
dangerous  knowledge  becomes  in  his  unscrupu- 
lous hands.  You  would  fail  sometimes,  of 
course,  with  all  the  moral  and  ethical  training 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  75 

you  could  give,  but  far  less  often  than  you  fail 
now. 

What  is  the  true  end  and  aim  of  education? 
Let  me  give  it  in  the  words  of  Milton  from  his 
"  Tractate  on  Education." 

"  I  call,  therefore,  a  complete  and  generous  edu- 
cation that  which  fits  a  man  to  perform  justly, 
skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both 
private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war.  In  the 
classics  the  main  skill  and  ground  work  will  be  to 
temper  the  pupils  with  such  lectures  and  explana- 
tions upon  every  opportunity  as  may  lead  and  draw 
them  into  willing  obedience,  inflamed  with  the  study 
of  learning  and  the  admiration  of  virtue,  stirred 
up  with  high  hopes  of  living  to  be  brave  men  and 
worthy  patriots,  dear  to  God  and  famous  to  all 
ages." 

Education,  in  other  words,  should  be  de- 
signed primarily  to  make  men,  to  produce  char- 
acter, to  develop  patriotism,  virtue,  and  a  high 
sense  of  honor.  Its  results  should  be  measured, 
not  simply  in  terms  of  scholarship,  of  acquire- 
ment, but  in  the  terms  of  sweetness  and  dignity 
in  womanhood,  of  honor  and  courage  and  chiv- 
alry in  manhood.  Does  our  utilitarian  system 
accomplish  this?  To  some  extent,  and  in  some 
instances,  thanks  to  the  fine  personality  of  the 
teachers  behind  the  system,  but  it  is  not  the  re- 
sult of  the  system.  Does  it  accomplish  it  as 
thoroughly   as    it   is    attained   in   the    English 


76  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

school   and   set   forth  in   the   familiar  lines   of 
Newboldt : 

**  This  is  the  word  that  year  by  year 
While  in  his  place  the  school  is  set, 
Every  English  boy  must  hear 
And  none  that  hears  it  dare  forget: 
This  they  all  with  a  joyful  mind, 
Bear  through  life  like  a  torch  aflame, 
And  falling*  fling  to  the  host  behind. 
Play  up !  play  up !  and  play  the  game !  " 

Do  our  American  young  men  look  to  the  pub- 
lic school  as  the  Englishmen  throughout  the 
Empire  look  back  to  Rugby  and  Harrow  and 
Winchester,  as  the  places  where,  in  addition  to 
knowledge,  all  high  ideals  of  noble  manhood, 
of  courage  and  faith  and  honor  were  inculcated? 
Do  our  young  men  look  back  to  the  public 
school  with  a  reverence  which  lasts  them 
through  life,  as  the  place  where  faith  was  stim- 
ulated, and  character  broadened,  and  they  were 
taught  to  be  men  and  play  their  part  whether 
in  peace  or  war,  whether  in  trade  or  politics, 
with  a  high  sense  of  patriotism  and  duty?  I 
think  that  nearly  every  one  is  agreed  that  the 
failure,  and  in  many  cases  it  is  an  abject  and 
pitiful  failure,  of  our  civic  life  is  just  at  this 
point,  in  the  indifference  and  lack  of  courage 
and  patriotism  on  the  part  of  the  citizen. 
Where  does  the  responsibility  for  the  failure 
lie?     Let  me  ask  instead,  if  it  would  not  be  pos- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  77 

sible  to  train  the  children  in  the  public  schools 
definitely  for  civic  service?  Would  it  not  be 
possible  to  teach  them  that  the  faithful  per- 
formance of  the  fundamental  duties  of  a  citizen 
in  a  democracy  is  as  important  as  the  daily  du- 
ties of  business  life?  that  the  avoidance  of 
these  duties  is  an  unpatriotic  and  an  unright- 
eous act?  I  do  not  mean  a  patriotic  exercise 
now  and  then,  but  a  definite  part  of  that 
broader  training  in  character  which  should  be 
an  essential  part  of  every  system  of  education. 
Discipline,  obedience,  respect  for  the  rights  of 
others,  the  sense  of  obligation  to  the  commu- 
nity, these  are  at  least  as  important  as  any 
technical  information  which  may  be  imparted. 
Let  me  emphasize  the  fact  again,  that  in  the 
lives  of  a  majority  of  children  the  school  exer- 
cises the  supreme  and  decisive  authority.  Not 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  character  is  the  su- 
preme element  in  citizenship  is  simply  suicidal. 
The  state  rests  ultimately  upon  character.  It 
can  have  no  continued  existence  except  as  in- 
telligence is  reinforced  by  virtue.  The  first 
thing  that  it  should  teach  in  self-defence,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  is  a  type  of  citizenship  in  which 
character  and  the  sense  of  personal  obligation 
are  the  main  factors. 

Until  this  defect  in  our  system  is  recognized 
and  these  things  are  definitely  and  systematic- 
ally taught,  we  must  rely  upon  the  impartation 


78  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

of  character  by  the  daily  example  of  the 
teacher,  to  supply  the  deficiency.  This  is  ac- 
complished by  the  teacher  to  an  extraordinary 
degree.  The  majority  of  our  teachers  see  the 
defect  clearly  and  endeavor  to  remedy  it,  but 
this  is  our  good  fortune,  not  the  merit  of  our 
system.  The  best  teachers  have  high  ideals, 
the  system  has  not.  This  fact  renders  the 
choice  of  teachers  the  most  important  work  of 
the  municipality.  The  over  emphasis  of  the 
importance  of  mental  training  has  led  the 
schools  and  colleges  to  make  the  demand  for 
high  scholarship  in  teachers  of  first  importance. 
Good  scholarship  should  be  required,  but  char- 
acter should  be  of  first  consideration.  I  do 
not  care  if  a  man  is  decorated  with  all  the  let- 
ters of  the  alphabet,  I  do  not  care  what  his 
intellectual  attainments  may  be,  if  he  does  not 
possess  a  character  of  irreproachable  integrity 
and  sincerity  and  manliness,  he  has  no  business 
to  be  a  teacher  in  the  public  schools.  A  woman 
may  have  studied  in  all  the  universities  of  Ger- 
many. She  may  be  a  paragon  of  information. 
Unless  she  possesses  in  addition  a  personality 
which  embodies  the  highest  ideals  of  woman- 
hood, her  place  is  anywhere  but  in  the  public 
school.  I  am  not  implying  for  a  moment  that 
the  majority  of  our  teachers  do  not  possess 
these  qualities.  They  owght  to  possess  these 
qualities.     The   interests   involved  are  too   im- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  79 

portant,  the  stake  is  too  high  to  take  chances 
with  anything  less.  The  tendency,  however,  is 
to  make  scholarship  and  intellectual  ability  su- 
preme, and  to  neglect  the  more  essential  ele- 
ment of  character.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some 
of  the  world's  greatest  teachers  have  been  men 
and  women  of  only  moderate  scholastic  attain- 
ment. Personality  and  not  scholarship  is  the 
decisive  factor. 

Finally,  I  believe  the  time  must  come  when 
the  teaching  in  our  public  schools  will  be  ideal- 
istic and  not  simply  utilitarian.  Jesus  Christ 
was  the  greatest  teacher  the  world  has  ever 
known.  The  teaching  of  the  scribes  of  his  day 
was  formal,  scholastic,  and  therefore  it  was 
without  influence  over  the  individual  or  the  na- 
tion. The  teaching  of  Jesus  possessed  the 
weight  of  authority,  because  it  aimed  at  the  de- 
velopment of  the  whole  nature.  "  I  am  come 
that  they  might  have  life  and  have  it  abundant- 
ly." "  Life  is  more  than  meat."  "  Man  does 
not  live  by  bread  alone."  Education  is 
more  than  information,  more  than  the  knowl- 
edge necessary  to  make  a  living.  Education 
must  minister  to  the  soul  as  well  as  to  the  body. 
It  must  be  as  broad  as  Herbert's  great  defini- 
tion, "  The  chief  business  of  education  is  the 
ethical  revelation  of  the  universe."  Education 
includes  a  revelation  of  God  as  well  as  of  mat- 
ter.    It  must  mould  and  develop  and  train  the 


80  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

whole  nature,  and  not  leave  the  most  important 
part  stunted  and  neglected.  Sometime  I  firmly 
believe,  the  state,  the  city,  will  recognize  this 
fact.  No  matter  how  great  your  teeming  pop- 
ulation, no  matter  how  extensive  and  profitable 
your  industries,  no  matter  how  complete  the  in- 
formation you  give  the  boys  and  girls  who 
throng  your  great  schools,  unless  your  city  is 
undergirded  with  righteousness,  unless  the  ris- 
ing generation  is  endowed  with  character,  un- 
less your  city  is  a  city  of  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
the  final  authority  behind  its  knowledge  and  its 
power,  it  will  fail  and  die.  For  love  translated 
into  character  is  the  supreme  factor  in  human 
life.  "  Whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall 
fail :  whether  there  he  tongues,  they  shall  cease : 
whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish 
away."  But  the  love  of  God  which  passeth 
understanding,  the  love  of  Christ  which  redeems 
the  world,  these  are  the  abiding  and  the  eternal 
things  as  they  are  wrought  into  the  life  of  man 
and  blossom  in  faith  and  service.  And  these 
things,  the  sense  of  the  eternal  and  the  divine 
behind  the  phenomena  of  nature,  behind  the 
flying  shadow  of  the  material  world,  must  be 
comprehended  somehow,  in  any  system  of  edu- 
cation, public  or  private,  which  is  to  answer 
the  supreme  end  of  education,  the  complete  and 
symmetrical  development  of  a  personality  made 
in  God's  image. 


VII 

THE    IDEAL    CITIZENSHIP 

That  ye  may  he  blameless  and  harmless,  the  sons  of 
God,  without  rebuke,  in  the  midst  of  a  crooked  and  per- 
verse nation,  among  whom  ye  shine  as  lights  in  the  world. 
—  Philippians  2: 15. 

The  human  element  is  often  the  last  to  be 
considered  when  we  sum  up  the  life  of  the  city. 
Business  and  commercial  interests  always  stand 
first.  If  the  city  is  growing  in  population,  we 
call  it  prosperity  and  we  are  satisfied.  The 
question  as  to  whether  it  is  growing  in  right- 
eousness, does  not  much  concern  us.  We  con- 
sider human  life  in  the  bulk,  men  and  women  as 
commercial  and  industrial  units,  not  as  indi- 
viduals. Even  the  great  moral  questions  are 
approached  in  the  minds  of  most  men  from  the 
utilitarian  standpoint.  What  is  the  chief  con- 
sideration when  the  saloon,  for  example,  is 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  men  of  the  com- 
munity on  election  day.?  How  many  men  think, 
"  This  is  a  traffic  which  is  destroying  my  fellow 
men,  body  and  soul,  and  therefore  as  a  broth- 
erly act,  I  will  oppose  it  ".?  The  majority  of 
81 


82  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

men  think,  "  The  saloon  is  in  some  remote  way 
a  promoter  of  trade;  to  destroy  it  might  injure 
certain  business  interests,  therefore  I  will  con- 
tinue it  and  protect  it." 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  that  it  is  this  hu- 
man element  which  is  really  the  effective  and 
important  factor  in  the  life  of  the  city.  Be- 
hind every  machine  there  is  a  man,  behind  every 
process  of  manufacture,  behind  every  phase  of 
construction  and  transportation,  there  are  men 
and  women,  and  there  would  be  no  city  and  no 
commerce,  and  no  tides  of  travel  and  trade  with- 
out them.  Of  what  use  would  be  your  public 
schools,  your  libraries,  your  civic  functions  of 
all  kinds  if  human  intelligences  were  not  direct- 
ing them.?  Yet  how  seldom  do  we  think  of  this 
phase  of  our  city  life!  We  think  more  of  the 
new  building  than  of  the  life  which  is  to  be 
trained  and  directed  within  its  walls.  We  pay 
more  attention  to  the  laying  out  of  streets  and 
parks  than  to  the  housing  of  the  poor.  We 
think  more  of  the  physical  adornment  of  the 
city  than  of  the  adornment  which  comes  from 
great  and  noble  character. 

"  Rest  your  self-esteem  more  in  character," 
said  a  Greek  philosopher  of  the  first  century 
to  the  citizens  of  the  rich  and  powerful  city  of 
Smyrna,  "  than  in  the  beauty  of  your  city. 
Though  it  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  cities 
under  the  sun  and  makes  the  sea  its  own  and 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  SS 

holds  the  fountain  of  Zephyrus,  yet  it  is  a 
greater  charm  to  wear  a  crown  of  men  than  a 
crown  of  porticoes  and  pictures  and  gold  be- 
yond the  standard  of  mankind,  for  buildings  are 
seen  only  in  their  own  place,  but  men  are  seen 
everywhere  and  spoken  about  everywhere  and 
make  their  city  as  vast  as  the  range  of  coun- 
tries they  can  visit."  This  is  as  true  as  the  day 
on  which  it  was  spoken.  The  best  advertise- 
ment of  a  city  is  an  enlightened  citizenship. 
Let  it  be  known  that  life  is  safe  within  your 
borders,  that  law  is  enforced,  that  crime  is 
kept  in  check,  that  the  schools  and  churches 
are  of  the  highest  order  of  excellence,  that  the 
moral  tone  of  the  community  is  lofty,  that  men 
are  sensitive  to  evil  and  earnestly  striving  to 
maintain  the  highest  civic  ideals,  and  you  will 
find  men  seeking  that  city  out  as  a  place  of  res- 
idence and  business. 

The  time  will  come,  I  am  convinced,  when  we 
shall  see  the  futility  and  foolishness  of  the 
purely  commercial  standards  of  life  which  we 
have  established.  We  shall  see  that  we  simply 
cannot  escape  our  responsibility.  We  live  too 
closely  together,  we  come  into  too  intimate  con- 
tact in  all  the  relationships  of  life,  to  escape  the 
penalty  of  carelessness  and  neglect  of  civic  du- 
ties. It  comes  home  to  us  as  plainly,  perhaps, 
in  the  matter  of  health  as  in  any  other  aspect. 
Suppose  a  disease,  a  disease  we  will  say  hith- 


m  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

erto  unknown,  accompanied  by  appalling  re- 
sults to  human  life,  originates  in  unsanitary 
conditions  which  the  city  has  neglected.  We 
might  possibly,  such  is  our  selfishness,  look  at 
it  with  indifference  if  it  attacked  the  children 
of  the  slums  alone.  But  it  does  not  do  so.  It 
is  no  respecter  of  persons.  It  knocks  at  the 
door  of  the  merchant  prince  as  well  as  at  the 
portal  of  the  tenement.  It  seizes  in  its  relent- 
less grip  the  children  of  the  rich  as  well  as  of 
the  poor.  The  city  pays  the  penalty.  And  it 
is  so,  also,  in  the  moral  life  of  the  community. 
We  are  too  closely  bound  together  by  ties  which 
we  did  not  make  and  cannot  break,  to  avoid  the 
responsibility  here.  The  moral  evil  of  the  com- 
munity does  not  remain  in  the  foul  pools  in 
which  it  is  bred.  A  moral  miasma  arises  from 
those  pools,  and  that  evil  which  we  condone 
for  the  sake  of  business,  which  we  have  not  the 
courage  to  destroy  because  it  may  affect  trade, 
enters  not  the  poorest  homes  of  the  city  alone, 
but  the  most  carefully  guarded,  and  leaves  its 
trail  of  sorrow  and  despair  behind.  You  may 
segregate  vice,  but  you  cannot  confine  the  evil 
influence  of  the  thing  to  any  quarter  of  the  city. 
When  you  elect  to  live  in  the  city  because  of 
the  advantages  which  accrue  to  you  in  society 
and  trade,  you  need  not  think  that  you  can 
shirk  your  responsibility,  nor  that  wealth  and 
position  will  make  you  immune  from  its  perils. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  85 

You  cannot  take  what  the  city  has  to  give  you 
and  give  nothing  in  return.  We  shall  see  this 
sometimes.  We  shall  realize  that  we  must  con- 
sider the  human  factor  first,  because  it  is  the 
most  important.  We  shall  bend  our  energies 
then,  and  spend  our  money,  not  only  on  beauti- 
ful buildings  and  gigantic  factories,  but  we 
shall  exert  ourselves  along  the  line  of  the  im- 
provement of  moral  and  social  conditions,  the 
betterment  of  human  life,  the  building  of  hu- 
man character. 

When  that  great  hearted  teacher  of  the  pub- 
lic schools.  Miss  Margaret  Maguire,  first  sug- 
gested the  possibility  of  a  special  training  for 
defective  children  to  the  rich  and  powerful  mu- 
nicipality of  Philadelphia,  which  employed  her 
at  wholly  inadequate  wages,  the  reply  came  that 
the  city  had  no  money  to  waste  on  such  experi- 
ments, which  must  be  conducted,  if  at  all,  at  her 
own  expense.  Every  one  knows  the  result  of 
her  persistence  and  self-sacrifice,  but  it  is  no 
credit  to  the  city  which  had  money  to  waste  in 
graft,  in  a  hundred  foolish  and  unintelligent 
wa3^s,  but  none  with  which  to  reach  down  a 
helping  hand  to  a  defective  child,  made  defect- 
ive, very  probably,  by  the  evil  conditions  under 
which  it  came  into  the  world.  Sometime  we 
shall  know  that  the  poorest,  most  backward 
child  that  walks  our  streets  is  worth  all  the  time 
and  money  we  can  expend  for  its  intellectual 


86  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

and  moral  salvation.  Never  forget  that  the 
communal  life  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest 
link.  Neglect  of  the  human  element  will  inev- 
itably bring  its  own  punishment.  Democracy 
must  fail  unless  it  is  true  democracy,  the  par- 
ticipation of  the  whole  and  not  a  part  of  the  cit- 
izenship in  all  its  activities  and  all  its  benefits. 
Jesus,  the  greatest  exponent  of  democracy 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  phrases  it  both  con- 
vincingly and  poetically  in  his  great  command, 
"  Let  your  light  shine."  What  does  that  mean  ? 
On  Sunday?  Does  it  mean  that  we  are  to  be 
so  distinct  from  the  world,  so  pious,  that  the 
admiring  gaze  of  the  populace  shall  be  turned 
upon  us?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  He  means 
that  there  is  a  light  of  personality,  of  power, 
which  God  has  given  to  every  one  of  us,  and  we 
are  to  let  it  shine  out  of  our  lives,  all  the  time, 
on  every  occasion;  in  the  home,  in  the  school 
room,  in  the  office,  on  the  street.  We  are  to  let 
the  light  of  service  and  devotion  and  love  which 
is  in  us  go  out  to  meet  all  the  problems  of  soci- 
ety ;  all  the  demands  of  the  associated  life  of  the 
community.  Democracy,  Christianity,  mean 
the  same  thing.  They  mean  the  acceptance  of 
responsibility,  the  giving  of  our  Christ  enlight- 
ened personalities  to  the  common  tasks  of  hu- 
manity. They  mean  that  we  are  not  simply  to 
live  in  the  city  and  enjoy  its  benefits.  We  are 
to  feel  in  return  a  high  sense  of  loyalty  and  de- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  87 

votion  and  pride  in  all  that  makes  the  city. 
This  is  not  simply  a  civic  duty.  It  is  a  re- 
ligious duty.  It  should  call  out  the  same  sense 
of  patriotism  which  burns  in  men's  hearts  in 
time  of  war.  This  feeling  of  civic  patriotism 
was  greater  in  the  ancient  days  than  it  is  in 
ours.  It  found  its  best  expression  in  the  Eph- 
ebic  oath,  taken  by  the  youth  of  Athens  when 
first  admitted  to  the  duties  of  citizenship: 

"  We  will  never  bring  disgrace  to  this  our  city 
by  any  act  of  dishonesty  or  cowardice,  nor  ever 
desert  our  suffering  comrades  in  the  ranks.  We 
will  fight  for  the  ideals  and  sacred  things  of  the 
city,  both  alone  and  with  many.  We  will  revere 
and  obey  the  city's  laws  and  do  our  best  to  incite 
a  like  respect  and  reverence  in  those  above  us  who 
are  prone  to  annul  and  set  them  at  nought.  We 
will  strive  unceasingly  to  quicken  the  public  sense 
of  civic  duty:  that  thus  in  all  these  ways  we  may 
transmit  this  city  not  less,  but  greater,  better  and 
more  beautiful  than  it  was  transmitted  to  us." 

It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  our  American 
youth  were  to  take  such  an  oath  as  this  of  loy- 
alty and  devotion  to  the  city.  Many  instead 
come  to  look  upon  the  city  as  an  "  easy  mark," 
the  legitimate  prey  of  the  unscrupulous  manip- 
ulation of  party  politics.  How  many  men  who 
are  elected  to  office  in  the  municipality  have  in 
their  hearts  no  motive  whatever  except  that 
of  a  high  and  honorable  purpose  to  serve  their 


88  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

fellow  men,  to  make  the  city  better  and  cleaner 
and  more  righteous  ?  How  many  enter  upon  of- 
fice with  the  interests  of  no  individual  or  cor- 
poration to  serve,  free  absolutely  to  devote 
themselves  impartially  to  the  public  interests 
and  those  alone?  Not  many,  and  that  is  be- 
cause we  have  developed  no  sense  of  civic  patri- 
otism and  civic  righteousness,  no  sense  of  mutual 
responsibility.  We  look  upon  the  city  not  as  a 
democracy,  a  commonalty  which  we  all  own, 
in  which  we  all  share,  in  whose  good  name  and 
good  fortune  we  are  all  concerned.  The  city 
is  looked  upon  impersonally,  as  a  gigantic  cor- 
poration, to  plunder  which  by  cunning  and 
shrewdness  is  a  virtue  rather  than  otherwise. 
The  ward  politician  looks  upon  the  spoils  and 
perquisites  of  city  politics  as  his  legitimate  re- 
ward. Why  is  he  spending  his  time  and  en- 
ergy if  not  for  what  he  can  get  out  of  it.? 
What  is  office  for.?  What  is  the  city,  if  not 
the  beneficent  source  from  which  all  blessings 
flow,  in  the  form  of  easy  jobs  and  padded  pay- 
rolls and  all  the  familiar  forms  of  municipal 
graft  ? 

We  know  perfectly  well  that  in  many  of  our 
American  cities  the  government  is  in  the  hands 
not  of  high  minded  and  intelligent  and  patriotic 
citizens.  We  know  that  it  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
gang  of  political  workers  who  are  in  it  frankly, 
for  what  is  coming  to  them  when  the  spoils  are 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  89 

divided.  Witness  the  shame  of  the  city  of  Law- 
rence, whose  mayor  was  taken  from  the  chair 
of  his  high  office  to  the  county  jail  for  the  fla- 
grant and  impudent  violations  of  the  very  laws 
which  he  had  sworn  to  enforce.  The  conditions 
will  never  be  any  better  until  the  men  who  are 
outside  this  gang,  the  earnest,  intelligent,  dis- 
interested men  of  the  community,  awaken  to  a 
sense  of  their  duty  and  their  responsibility,  un- 
til these  men  take  at  least  enough  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  their  city  to  go  to  the  caucuses 
and  to  the  polls  on  election  day.  It  always 
seems  unpatriotic  to  some  when  any  compari- 
sons are  m£ide  with  conditions  in  other  countries 
unfavorable  to  America.  But  every  one  who 
knows  anything  about  conditions  in  England 
and  on  the  continent  knows  that  they  are  im- 
measurably better  than  with  us.  Why  is  it? 
Because  they  have  developed  a  sense  of  civic  re- 
sponsibility. Because  they  are  democratic  in 
the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  and  we  are  oligar- 
chic. Because  we  allow  our  affairs  to  be  man- 
aged by  the  few  forces,  and  those  few  usually 
not  the  best,  but  the  worst.  In  England  the 
best  men  in  the  community,  and  by  best  I  am  not 
drawing  any  invidious  distinction  of  wealth 
and  class,  the  best  men  of  all  classes  and  all 
creeds  give  their  time  and  their  service  freely  to 
the  interests  of  the  city.  There  is  no  political 
graft  in  the  English  municipality.     Every  man 


90  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

is  working  for  the  betterment  of  his  city  with 
the  same  sort  of  loyal  interest  and  devotion 
which  inspired  the  Athenian  youth  when  he  took 
the  Ephebic  oath.  When  a  man  enters  upon 
office  he  ceases  to  think  of  himself,  of  his  party, 
or  of  his  personal  friends  and  relatives. 
He  is  simply  an  Englishman  set  there  to 
serve  his  city  to  the  best  of  his  ability 
with  all  his  heart  and  soul.  And  that,  I  say, 
is  essentially  a  religious  attitude.  It  must  all 
come  back  to  that  finally.  The  man  who  does 
this  is  letting  his  light  shine  not  for  his  own  il- 
lumination, but  for  others.  He  is  projecting 
his  own  personality  with  the  gifts  which  God 
has  given  him  into  the  commercial  life.  It  is 
a  higher  attitude  than  business,  higher  than 
patriotism.  These  will  not  suffice  alone.  We 
say  we  want  our  business  men  to  go  into  poli- 
tics. We  say  we  want  a  business  administra- 
tion. I  do  not  know  about  that  wholly.  There 
are  some  business  men  whom  I  would  much 
rather  see  anywhere  than  in  public  office. 
There  are  some  business  methods  devised  by  the 
devil,  and  we  certainly  do  not  want  them  ap- 
plied to  public  affairs.  Patriotism  alone  will 
not  suffice.  There  was  corruption  in  Athens 
in  spite  of  the  Ephebic  oath.  Athens  repudi- 
ated her  prophets  and  slew  her  gentlest  and 
best.  Behind  business  methods  and  patriotism, 
we  must  have  conscience  and  ideals.     We  must 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  91 

have  men  who  possess  the  prophetic  vision, 
whose  minds  are  set  on  high  things.  And  we 
must  link  the  vision  to  the  hard,  prosaic  work 
of  politics.  The  trouble  with  us  in  all  our  af- 
fairs is  that  we  have  tried  carefully  to  separate 
faith  and  works,  vision  and  service;  and  you 
cannot  do  it  without  disaster.  We  must  get 
back  to  the  mediaeval  idea  of  a  religious  faith 
which  penetrates  all  our  daily  lives,  which  en- 
ters into  our  business  or  politics  and  transforms 
them,  idealizes  them  and  makes  them  holy.  We 
cannot  lead  one  life  of  faith  and  prayer  and 
aspiration,  and  another  of  hard,  cold,  calculat- 
ing selfishness.  We  cannot  build  a  beautiful 
golden  shrine  for  faith  and  live  in  a  mean  hovel 
of  selfishness  in  our  daily  work.  We  cannot 
have  a  religious  life  of  the  community  which 
preaches  and  prays  on  Sunday  and  lets  the  city 
go  to  the  devil  on  Monday. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  there  lived  in  Salis- 
bury, England,  John  Halle,  a  famous  merchant 
of  the  wool  trade  and  mayor  of  the  city.  He 
adopted  as  the  sign  of  his  business  a  sacred  em- 
blem, the  cross,  as  a  symbol  of  Christianity, 
a  circle,  indicating  a  belief  in  eternity,  and  a 
triangle,  standing  for  the  Trinity,  the  whole 
entertwined  above  the  staple,  the  distinctive 
mark  of  his  trade.  "  And  I  cannot  but  think," 
says  an  old  writer  as  he  comments  upon  this 
symbol,    "  that   I    here   recognize    a   figurative 


9a  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

meaning.  I  cannot  divest  my  mind  of  the  idea 
that  the  pious  merchant  here  means  to  designate 
that  his  mercantile  transactions  are  entered  into 
with  honest  integrity;  that  he  trades  beneath 
the  cross;  that  he  is  enlisted  under  the  banner 
of  his  Saviour ;  that  he  enters  into  his  commer- 
cial dealings  with  the  good  faith  of  the  Chris- 
tian." 

How  many  men  today  trade  beneath  the 
cross.''  How  many  would  dare  to  stamp  upon 
every  piece  of  goods  they  made  the  cross  and 
the  triangle  and  the  circle,  the  emblems  of  serv- 
ice and  sacrifice  and  the  eternal  distinctions  be- 
tween right  and  wrong.?  How  many  men  of 
our  modem  days  are  entering  politics  beneath 
the  cross,  resolved  to  stand  for  those  things 
and  those  things  only  which  are  true  and  right- 
eous and  lovely  and  of  good  report  .'^  How 
many  men  enter  public  service  with  the  same 
feelings  of  chivalry  and  devotion  which  would 
send  them  out  to  battle  if  the  nation  were  at- 
tacked by  a  foreign  foe.?  We  must  recover 
this  spirit  in  our  civic  life,  in  business,  in  gov- 
ernment, yes,  in  the  church  itself.  We  are  im- 
mensely clever  in  our  age.  We  have  a  great 
admiration  for  the  man  who  is  smart,  who  turns 
the  trick,  who  "  delivers  the  goods,"  and  we  are 
not  greatly  concerned  to  inquire  how  he  does  it, 
if  he  only  produces  results.  Are  we  clever 
enough  to  see  that  this  sort  of  thing  can  end 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDI>  93 

only  in  disaster?  Life  in  its  long  results  is 
built  upon  the  foundation  stones  of  conscience 
and  righteousness  and  character,  and  not  on 
the  shifting  sands  of  cleverness  and  trickery 
and  deceit.  We  must  demand  the  highest  type 
of  men  in  business,  in  politics,  the  ideal  citizen- 
ship ;  men  who  trade  and  serve  beneath  the  cross, 
who  are  actuated  not  by  selfishness  but  by  prin- 
ciple, who  let  the  light  of  an  exalted  character 
shine  for  the  high  service  to  which  they  are 
called. 


VIII 

THE    SALOON:    A    PUBLIC     NUISANCE 

And  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  it  anything  that 
defileth,  neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination^  or  mak- 
eth  a  lie.—  Revelation  21 :  27. 

The  city  is  a  society  of  men  and  women  or- 
ganized for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number.  When  a  person  elects  to  live  in  a  city 
he  surrenders  voluntarily  certain  individual 
rights.  He  is  not  compelled  to  live  in  the  city, 
but  if  he  chooses  to  do  so,  he  must  abide  by  the 
laws  which  are  made,  not  for  his  individual  ben- 
efit but  for  the  good  of  all.  A  man's  own  house 
is  his  castle,  which  may  not  be  invaded  under  or- 
dinary circumstances.  What  a  man  eats  or 
drinks,  what  he  wears,  how  he  conducts  him- 
self, is  his  own  concern,  provided  he  does  noth- 
ing which  disturbs  the  peace  of  his  neighbors. 
If,  however,  he  makes  himself  an  offense  to  his 
neighbors,  if  he  violates  the  common  law,  then 
his  house  may  be  entered  and  the  annoyance 
suppressed.  In  the  community  at  large  a  still 
greater  restraint  is  placed  upon  individual  lib- 
erty. A  man  may  do  nothing  which  works  det- 
94 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  96 

riment  or  harm,  or  which  becomes  an  offense  to 
his  neighbor.  Every  year  the  rights  of  the 
community  as  against  those  of  the  individual 
are  enlarged.  The  city  sees  to  it  that  no  busi- 
ness becomes  a  source  of  contagion  or  a  menace 
to  the  public  health.  An  unsanitary  bake  shop 
may  be  closed.  A  manufactory  emanating  vile 
odors  will  not  be  permitted  in  proximity  to  the 
homes  of  the  people.  Regulations  may  be 
passed  requiring  a  minimum  of  smoke  from 
chimneys  and  locomotives.  The  milk  supply 
must  reach  a  certain  standard  of  purity  and 
excellence.  The  sweeping  national  pure  food 
laws,  while  not  perfect  in  form  nor  in  execution, 
have  none  the  less  broken  down  many  of  the  bar- 
riers which  formerly  existed  between  public  and 
private  rights.  More  and  more  the  community 
stands  upon  its  rights.  Steadily  it  enlarges  the 
boundaries  of  the  realm  of  public  privilege. 
Every  day  it  has  less  patience  with  anything 
which  invades  its  rights  and  becomes  a  public 
nuisance,  a  source  of  danger  and  offense  to  all. 
I  maintain  that  the  open  saloon  is  a  public 
nuisance,  that  it  is  a  source  of  moral  corrup- 
tion, of  social  defilement.  I  maintain  that  it 
poisons  the  sources  of  public  and  private  vir- 
tue, that  it  is  hostile  to  legitimate  business  in- 
terests, that  it  is  a  standing  menace  to  the 
health  and  prosperity  of  any  community.  The 
most  dangerous  evil  of  the  city  today  is  not  po- 


96  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

litical  corruption,  but  the  source  of  political 
corruption,  the  malignant  social  agency  which 
we  call  the  saloon.  The  saloon  is  a  public  nui- 
sance, and  on  this  ground  it  should  be  sup- 
pressed and  driven  out  of  every  community. 

The  saloon  is  a  public  nuisance  because  it  is 
the  source  of  a  very  large  percentage  of  all 
the  forms  of  evil  in  the  city.  We  cannot  define 
exactly  what  this  mysterious  force  which  we  call 
evil  is,  but  we  know  by  experience,  by  observa- 
tion, its  malignant  and  destructive  power.  We 
know  beyond  question  that  it  corrupts  personal- 
ity as  a  powerful  acid  corrodes  and  disinte- 
grates a  metal.  We  know  that  it  is  the  foe  of 
civilization,  that  it  destroys  the  constituent  or- 
der of  society  as  well  as  the  personality  of  the 
individual.  Evil  manifests  itself  outwardly  in 
acts  against  law  and  order  which  we  call  crime. 
Crime  knows  no  law,  recognizes  no  authority. 
It  is  a  destructive  force  directed  against  prop- 
erty, against  human  life  itself.  Society  at- 
tempts to  safeguard  itself  against  crime  in  vari- 
ous ways.  It  organizes  police  forces  which  con- 
stitute practically  an  army  in  times  of  peace; 
it  builds  jails  and  prisons  which  are  really  great 
military  defenses.  It  must  do  this,  or  society 
would  go  back  into  its  original  elements  of  sav- 
agery. In  spite  of  its  well  disciplined  army, 
in  spite  of  its  strong  defenses,  society  faces  the 
fact  today  that  crime  is  on  the  increase.     You 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  97 

cannot  open  your  newspaper  without  reading 
accounts  of  bold  crimes  committed  both  in  the 
city  and  in  the  country.  This  increase  in  crime 
is  a  very  serious  matter.  Those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  facts  know  how  narrow  is  the 
margin  of  safety  at  all  times  between  law  and 
order  and  anarchy. 

What  shall  be  done.?  Shall  we  go  on  indefi- 
nitely increasing  police  forces  and  enlarging 
prisons.'^  Is  there  not  a  better  way.?  The 
search  for  the  cause  of  any  given  phenomenon 
is  the  basic  principle  of  all  modern  scientific  dis- 
covery, of  all  modern  progress.  The  astron- 
omer notices  that  the  planets  do  not  exactly  fol- 
low the  known  law  of  their  motion.  He 
searches  for  the  cause,  and  maps  out  exactly 
the  position  of  the  undiscovered  planet  which 
alone  can  account  for  the  variation.  All  the 
great  inventions  are  the  result  of  the  tracing 
of  observed  phenomena  to  the  reason,  the  cause, 
which,  undiscovered  by  the  untrained  eye,  al- 
ways lies  behind  the  outward  fact.  When  an 
outbreak  of  fever  or  plague  occurs  in  a  commu- 
nity, the  health  authorities  immediately  begin 
a  careful  investigation  of  the  possible  sources 
of  contamination.  The  water  and  milk  sup- 
plies, garbage,  insects ;  everything  that  is  in 
any  way  suspected  is  examined  by  experts  to 
find  the  source  of  contagion.  Cut  off  the  im- 
pure  water   and  the  typhoid  epidemic   is   con- 


98  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

quered.  Screen  the  cisterns  and  New  Orleans 
is  freed  from  the  perpetual  menace  of  yellow 
fever.  Kill  the  rats,  and  San  Francisco  and 
the  whole  nation  is  preserved  from  the  horror  of 
the  bubonic  plague.  Is  there  any  possible  rea- 
son why  we  should  not  apply  the  same  scientific 
principles  to  the  problem  of  crime.? 

Crime  is  a  phenomenon  which  must  be  like  all 
things  else,  reducible  to  known  laws  and  princi- 
ples. Crime  is  a  moral  infection.  The  problem 
of  society  is  to  find  its  source,  and  when  it  is 
found,  to  destroy  it.  What  is  the  source  of 
crime.?'  I  have  never  heard  any  recognized 
authority  dispute  the  statement  that  the  main 
source  of  crime  is  alcohol  and  the  dispenser  of 
alcohol,  the  saloon.  This  is  not  my  opinion, 
or  the  opinion  of  any  dogmatist  of  any  school. 
It  is  cold,  hard,  indisputable  fact.  It  is  just 
as  inevitable,  just  as  irrefutable  as  the  multipli- 
cation table  or  the  law  of  gravitation.  It  is 
based  upon  figures  which  have  been  verified 
time  after  time,  it  is  based  upon  the  testimony 
of  criminals  themselves,  of  students  and  keepers 
of  criminals,  upon  the  grim  records  of  prisons 
and  jails.  The  saloon-keeper  himself  does  not 
deny  it  or  attempt  to  deny  it.  In  all  the  litera- 
ture published  by  the  saloon  interests,  you  will 
not  find  anywhere  a  denial  of  the  figures  pub- 
lished by  the  trained  experts  of  the  bureaus  of 
statistics;  namely,  that  84%   of  the  crime  of 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  99 

the  nation  is  caused  by  liquor.  Now,  if  we 
have  discovered  the  main  cause  of  crime  and 
disorder  in  the  community,  why  not,  according 
to  the  procedure  of  science,  proceed  to  abate 
it?  Why  should  the  community  have  any  more 
sympathy  for  the  saloon,  any  more  tolerance 
of  it,  than  it  would  have  for  a  typhoid-breeding 
pool  of  filthy  water  or  for  a  swarm  of  deadly 
mosquitoes  or  for  a  nest  of  rats  infected  with 
the  bubonic  plague?  Here  is  the  unquestioned, 
undoubted  source  of  much  of  the  evil  of  our 
cities.  Stamp  it  out  then !  Destroy  it,  in  the 
name  of  civilization,  lest  it  infect  the  commu- 
nity, pollute  your  own  homes  and  inoculate  with 
vice  your  own  children !  Can  the  stern  logic 
of  the  situation  be  questioned?  The  saloon  is 
a  public  nuisance  because  it  is  a  source,  an  ad- 
mited  source  of  moral  contagion,  the  original 
cause  of  the  major  part  of  the  evil  and  misery 
of  the  city.  Therefore  it  should  be  destroyed. 
Again,  the  saloon  is  a  public  nuisance,  be- 
cause it  is  a  source  of  economic  loss,  both  to 
labor  and  to  capital.  Many  of  the  great  rail- 
roads of  the  country  forbid  their  employees  to 
be  seen  in  a  saloon,  either  on  or  off  duty,  under 
penalty  of  instant  discharge  from  the  service. 
Since  that  terrible  catastrophe  on  one  of  our 
railroads  in  the  summer  of  1912,  caused  by  a 
drunken  engineer  who  drove  his  great  express 
locomotive  past  three  signals  set  against  him, 


100  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

full  speed  into  the  rear  of  an  excursion  train, 
killing  or  maiming  nearly  a  hundred  passengers, 
the  railroads  have  made  still  more  stringent  reg- 
ulations against  the  saloon.  No  employer  of 
labor  who  is  not  absolutely  blind  to  his  own 
interests  will  uphold  an  institution  which  de- 
bauches his  workmen  and  decreases  his  profits. 
The  margin  of  profit  is  too  small,  to  neglect  an 
item  of  such  importance.  The  evidence  is  ab- 
solutely conclusive  that  alcohol  reduces  the  ef- 
ficiency of  the  workman  and  increases  the  num- 
ber of  accidents  in  all  forms  of  industry. 

If  the  saloon  is  the  foe  of  Capital,  how  much 
more  is  it  the  arch-enemy  of  Labor.  The  in- 
telligent workingman  sees  that  he  must  choose 
between  his  appetite  and  his  own  interests.  If 
he  drinks,  he  earns  less,  he  is  in  constant  danger 
of  discharge,  because  all  the  important  con- 
cerns in  the  country  are  demanding  sober  labor. 
The  young  workingman  knows  that  he  must 
choose  between  a  home  of  his  own  and  the  sa- 
loon. He  certainly  cannot  have  both.  If  he 
frequents  the  saloon,  he  cannot  properly  clothe 
and  educate  his  children,  he  must  deprive  his 
family  of  many  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts 
of  life.  The  position  of  Labor  is  strongly  set 
forth  by  the  great  leader,  John  Mitchell,  who 
says,  "  I  am  against  the  saloons  because  they 
are  against  my  people.  On  pay  day  the  sa- 
loon-keepers   are   like    tigers.     My   men    enter 


AND  CIVIC  PMDE*    '  ''vfOl 

their  resorts  with  their  wages,  and  often  leave 
them  with  nothing,  and  then  the  wives  must 
pacify  the  storekeepers  for  the  non-payment  of 
bills,  and  the  family  is  left  practically  desti- 
tute. Our  union  stands  for  temperance,  and 
better  and  more  decent  men." 

The  saloon  should  be  destroyed  as  a  public 
nuisance  because  it  endangers  the  public  safety 
through  the  criminal  inefficiency  of  drunken 
workmen,  and  because  it  reduces  the  earning 
power  of  both  labor  and  capital. 

The  only  arguments  in  favor  of  the  saloon 
are  these: 

First,  the  license  fees  help  to  pay  the  taxes 
of  the  city.  This  is  a  plea  as  false  as  it  is  spe- 
cious. The  saloon-keeper  turns  a  certain 
amount  of  money  over  to  the  city,  but  where 
does  he  get  it.''  Who  pays  it?  I  will  tell  you 
who  pays  it.  The  mothers  and  wives  and  little 
children  of  the  city  pay  it.  The  wife  must  go 
without  a  new  dress,  the  child  without  shoes,  lit- 
tle children  like  yours  must  go  cold  and  hungry 
to  bed  in  order  that  you  may  profit  by  the 
license  fee.  It  is  paid  in  blood  and  tears.  The 
respectable  and  prosperous  citizens  of  the  com- 
munity cannot  afford  morally  or  economically 
to  profit  by  a  few  dollars  saved  in  taxes  in  such 
a  manner.  It  is  not  really  saved.  The  saloons 
are  a  financial  loss  to  the  tax-payer,  for  the 
simple   and    sufficient   reason   that   they   make 


$6k>' '-  CWIC  mGHTEOUSNESS 

more  expense  than  they  pay  in  revenue.  You 
are  not  a  gainer  by  the  transaction  if  a  man 
puts  one  dollar  into  your  pocket  and  takes  two 
dollars  out.  It  is  an  old  "  Aim  flam  "  game 
which  the  saloon  has  worked  on  an  unsuspect- 
ing public  for  many  years.  The  license  fees 
in  any  city  do  not  begin  to  pay  the  increased 
cost  of  pauperism  and  crime  which  the  saloon 
entails.  Add  to  the  burdens  of  actual  taxa- 
tion the  immense  sums  given  by  philanthropy 
to  repair  the  mischief  caused  to  society  by  the 
saloon  and  we  shall  begin  to  realize  the  folly  of 
supposing  the  saloon  to  be  a  source  of  profit  to 
the  city.  The  tax-payer  who  votes  to  main- 
tain the  saloon  under  the  impression  that  it  is 
wise  economy  is  simply  the  victim  of  a  confi- 
dence game  which  he  is  not  shrewd  enough  to 
detect. 

It  can  be  demonstrated  beyond  any  possibil- 
ity of  doubt  that  the  city  without  the  saloon 
is  better,  happier,  cleaner  and  more  prosper- 
ous. The  saloon  impoverishes  the  country 
morally,  and  it  also  impoverishes  it  financially. 
The  license  fee  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp.  It  de- 
ceives the  business  man  with  its  golden  promise 
and  vanishes  in  the  bog  of  increased  pauperism 
and  crime.  The  saloon  is  a  vampire  which 
sucks  the  blood  of  legitimate  industry. 

The  saloon  is  not  a  business:  it  cannot  bo 
treated  by  the  community  upon  a  business  basis. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  103 

It  IS  a  public  nuisance  and  no  city  is  better  off 
financially  or  in  any  other  way  for  maintaining 
a  public  nuisance. 

But  there  is  another  argument  which  is  very 
commonly  used  even  by  people  who  do  not  be- 
lieve in  the  saloon.  If  you  abolish  the  saloon, 
that  will  not  stop  drinking,  it  will  only  drive  the 
selling  of  liquor  into  places  of  concealment  and 
the  cure  will  be  worse  than  the  evil.  This  it 
seems  to  me  is  the  weakest  possible  argument 
which  could  be  advanced.  Certainly  it  has  no 
standing  on  any  moral  ground;  and  like  the 
previous  argument,  it  rests  upon  a  fallacy. 
Prohibition  is  not  the  right  word  to  use  in  this 
connection.  You  cannot,  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  the  word,  prohibit  any  evil.  But  because 
we  can  not  prohibit,  does  it  follow  that  we  must 
license  an  evil.?  The  logical  application  of 
such  a  principle  would  destroy  the  efficiency 
of  all  law  and  turn  the  community  over  to  an- 
archy. We  cannot  prohibit  assault  or  bur- 
glary, or  arson  or  murder,  or  any  of  the  many 
evils  which  afflict  society.  Shall  we  then  license 
them.''  Suppose  you  were  knocked  down  in  the 
street,  brutally  beaten  and  robbed,  and  you 
should  discover  that  your  assailant  wore  a  badge 
which  announced  that  he  was  Licensed  High- 
wayman No.  47.  Then  suppose  a  respectable 
citizen  should  come  along  and  you  should  ve- 
hemently protest  at  such  a  proceeding.     Sup- 


104  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

pose  he  should  saj  then,  "  My  dear  sir,  calm 
yourself.  We  cannot  prohibit  assault.  We 
had  a  law  on  our  books,  but  we  found  that  as- 
saults continued  just  the  same.  So  we  decided 
that  the  best  way  to  regulate  this  business  was 
to  issue  licenses.  We  permit  only  one  high- 
wayman to  every  1000  inhabitants.  I  assure 
you  that  the  matter  is  carefully  regulated  and 
kept  within  reasonable  bounds  by  the  police. 
Surely  you  would  not  have  irresponsible  and  un- 
regulated highwaymen  on  every  street."  I  sub- 
mit that  the  case  is  parallel.  The  saloon  is  an 
evil.  Everybody  admits  it  to  be  an  evil.  It 
is  a  public  nuisance.  It  makes  criminals,  pau- 
pers, imbeciles;  it  corrupts  politics,  it  pollutes 
the  stream  of  social  and  industrial  life.  We 
know  this.  No  one  disputes  it.  It  cannot 
wholly  be  stopped,  therefore  we  say,  "  Let  us 
license  it."  Why  should  we  license  this  evil 
because  we  cannot  wholly  stop  it,  any  more 
than  any  other  evil?  The  law  has  never 
stopped  arson  wholly,  but  we  do  not  turn  li- 
censed incendiaries  loose  upon  a  helpless  v^em- 
munity.  We  cannot  safely  license  any  evil. 
We  must  pass  our  laws  against  it,  do  our  best 
to  stop  it,  restrain  it  as  far  as  possible  and  let 
it  go  at  that.  To  license  any  evil  whatsoever 
is  a  sin  against  the  fundamental  principles  of 
society.  It  is  a  cowardly  makeshift  and  some 
one  must  pay  the  price  of  the  evasion. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  106 

In  their  alarm  at  the  rapid  spread  of  the  tem- 
perance sentiment  throughout  the  nation,  the 
leaders  in  the  liquor  business  have  tried  to  make 
the  saloon  seem  more  respectable  in  the  matter 
of  the  observance  of  the  law.  But  they  have 
not  succeeded.  You  cannot  by  any  possibility 
reform  the  saloon.  You  cannot  make  respecta- 
ble an  institution  which  caters  to  the  lowest 
and  vilest  instincts  of  humanity.  If  the  ter- 
ror of  the  jungle,  the  gaunt,  striped  incarna- 
tion of  sudden  death,  the  man-eating  tiger, 
should  employ  some  one  to  paint  on  his  lean 
and  hungry  side,  "  I  am  Mary's  Little  Lamb," 
would  any  one  believe  it.''  Would  mothers  send 
their  children  out  to  play  with  him?  Would 
the  people  of  the  village  bid  him  welcome  to 
their  streets  .f*  No  more  should  we  trust  the  sa- 
loon when  it  paints  upon  its  seductive  portals, 
"  This  is  a  respectable  place  of  business."  Will 
mothers  send  their  growing  boys  there,  because 
it  advertises  a  false  and  lying  respectability? 
Let  us  have  done  with  such  absurdity.  Let 
the  saloon  stand  for  what  it  is  in  every  com- 
munity. Like  the  man-eating  tiger,  it  feeds 
upon  the  flesh  of  its  victims.  It  corrupts  and 
destroys  the  young  manhood  of  the  city,  it  se- 
duces women,  it  destroys  the  happiness  of  homes, 
it  inflicts  suff^ering  upon  innocent  children,  it 
makes  righteousness  in  our  city  government  im- 
possible. 


106  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Do  not  say,  I  beg  of  you,  that  men  have  al- 
ways been  drunken  and  they  always  will.  .  Do 
not  say  that  the  saloon  has  always  existed  and 
it  always  will.  That  is  a  pessimism  unworthy 
of  any  Christian  and  unwarranted  by  the  facts. 
There  was  a  time  when  every  town  was  unclean, 
when  sewage  ran  in  the  streets  and  houses  reeked 
with  filth.  There  was  a  time  when  human  life 
was  not  safe  outside  the  walled  cities.  There 
was  a  time  when  the  duel  was  the  universal  code 
of  honor.  There  was  a  time  when  Christian 
people  said  that  slavery  could  never  be  abol- 
ished. 

The  drink  habit  is  a  relic  of  barbarism. 
The  saloon  is  an  excrescence,  a  cancer  in  civ- 
ilization which  must  be  cut  out  and  destroyed 
or  it  will  destroy  civilization  itself.  Tt  is  like 
an  atrophied  and  diseased  organ  in  the  body, 
of  no  value  and  threatening  danger  perpetually. 
There  can  be  no  compromise  in  this  matter. 
Sooner  or  later  you  must  take  sides.  Let  it 
be  for  the  sacred  cause  of  righteousness  and 
purity  and  honor.  I  make  the  appeal  to  your 
consciences.  There  are  matters  in  this  world 
of  God's,  which  we  cannot  decide  on  the  basis 
of  money  or  expediency.  And  this  is  the  chief 
of  them.  The  life  of  your  boy,  your  daugh- 
ter's honor,  are  they  for  sale  at  any  price,  in 
any  market  place.?  This  is  the  supreme  peril 
of   modern   life.     The   wolf,   ravenous    for  his 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  107 

prey,  waits  at  the  door  of  every  newly-formed 
home.  I  appeal  to  you  as  Christians,  both  men 
and  women,  as  you  love  your  Lord  and  Master, 
as  you  are  pledged  to  work  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world,  to  work  and  pray  unceasingly  for 
the  destruction  of  the  most  deadly  foe  of  vir- 
tue and  happiness,  the  curse  of  modern  society, 
the  open,  legalized  saloon. 


IX 

CIVIC  RIGHTS  AND  CIVIC  DUTIES 

And  whosoever  will  he  chief  among'  you  let  him  be 
your  servant,  even  as  the  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  ndmster,  and  to  give  his  life  a 
ransom  for  many. —  Matthew  20:27-28. 

The  Bible  is  a  very  gracious  book.  Seldom 
does  it  say  "  Thou  shalt,  thou  shalt  not."  The 
word  "  must "  occurs  in  only  a  few  instances. 
But  through  it  all  runs  the  gre.::^  appeal  to  the 
sense  of  responsibility  and  service.  W^e  are  to 
serve,  not  because  we  are  compelled  to  do  so. 
not  because  we  fear  the  lash  of  the  taskmaster, 
but  because  there  is  no  other  way  in  which  we 
can  be  worthy  to  be  called  the  sons  of  God  and 
enter  into  the  glorious  liberty  which  is  the  her- 
itage of  the  sons  of  God.  I  wonder  how  any 
thoughtful  person  can  imagine  that  he  can  live 
in  the  city  and  escape  the  operation  of  this  law 
of  service.  What  is  a  city.?  It  is  not  merely 
an  aggregation  of  warehouses  and  residences 
and  public  buildings.  It  is  a  living  entity.  It 
is  humanity  raised  to  the  nth  power.  No  one 
who  has  any  sensibility  at  all,  can  live  in  a  city 

without  emotion,  without  a  sense  of  its  tragedy, 
108 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  109 

its  mystery,  its  pain,  and  an  ever-deepening 
sense  of  its  divine  possibilities  for  righteousness 
and  power. 

Unfortunately  the  emphasis  of  our  modem 
times  is  too  much  upon  civic  rights  and  too  lit- 
tle upon  civic  duties  and  responsibilities.  Too 
often  the  citizen  who  pays  no  taxes,  who  con- 
tributes nothing  to  the  common  weal,  the  immi- 
grant who  has  just  landed  from  a  foreign  shore, 
are  insistent  in  their  demands  of  what  they  con- 
sider their  rights  in  the  community.  The  right 
of  protection  from  lawlessness  and  fire,  the 
right  of  free  communication  by  the  means  of  the 
city  streets,  the  right  of  free  education  for  any 
number  of  children,  the  right  of  a  hundred  priv- 
ileges and  conveniences,  all  these  things  the  cit- 
izen has  come  to  regard  as  his  privilege  without 
any  return  whatever.  He  does  not  consider 
for  a  moment  that  these  things  have  cost  some- 
thing, that  they  represent  the  toil,  the  money, 
the  self-sacrifice,  the  intelligent  giving  of  per- 
sonality. He  simply  accepts  these  things  with- 
out any  sense  of  gratitude  or  responsibility,  as 
his  inalienable  right.  He  would  be  indignant 
if  he  were  challenged  by  the  city  in  this  way: 
"  I  give  you  these  privileges  freely,  but  what 
are  you  going  to  give  me  in  return  ?  "  But 
somebody  has  to  give  something.  Civilization 
cannot  exist  except  by  perpetual  giving,  per- 
petual service,  perpetual  sacrifice.     It  is  high 


110  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

time  that  we  talk  less  of  civic  rights  and  more 
of  civic  obligations. 

We  should  teach  the  children  in  the  public 
schools  constantly,  with  the  utmost  emphasis, 
that  we  owe  the  city  and  the  nation  something 
in  return  for  the  inestimable  rights  and  privi- 
leges which  are  conferred  freely  upon  us. 
They  should  not  come  to  think  that  the  schools, 
the  streets,  the  parks,  yes,  and  even  private 
property  in  the  city,  belong  to  them,  and  that 
freedom  means  license.  They  should  be  taught 
that  these  things  have  come  by  sacrifice,  that 
somebody  has  paid  the  price  for  them.  They 
should  be  taught  to  reverence  and  to  love  the 
city,  to  keep  its  streets  clean  and  beautiful,  to 
care  for  its  property,  to  resolve  that  sometime 
they  will  partly  repay  in  service  the  debt  which 
a  life  of  service  would  not  fully  repay.  They 
should  be  taught  the  breadth  and  the  splendor 
of  the  word  "  patriotism."  They  should  be 
taught  that  it  means  not  simply  dying  for  the 
country,  if  the  time  should  come  to  die,  but 
that  it  means  the  infinitely  harder  duty  of 
living  for  the  country,  of  a  constant  energizing 
of  self  in  service.  I  do  not  say  that  they  are 
not  so  taught,  but  this  teaching  should  be  em- 
phasized until  civic  patriotism  becomes  a  pas- 
sion, and  the  feeling  that  the  privileges  of  the 
city  are  inalienable  rights  is  lost  in  the  eager- 
ness to  participate  in  civic  duties. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  111 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  tendencies  of  our 
times  is  the  idea  that  we  can  substitute  law  and 
machinery  for  personal  service.  We  must 
never  forget  that  charters  and  legislation  can 
never  be  substitutes  for  personality.  The  more 
complicated  the  civic  machine,  the  more  ur- 
gently are  needed  men  of  ability  and  character 
to  manipulate  it.  Suppose  by  majority  vote 
we  should  incorporate  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  into  our  city  charter,  we  should  be  to- 
morrow exactly  where  we  are  today.  Until  we 
have  men  who  believe  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
with  all  their  souls  and  are  ready  to  observe 
in  their  lives  its  last  detail  we  shall  make  no 
real  progress.  There  are  miles  of  remedial 
legislation  on  our  statute  books  which  are 
merely  waste  paper.  All  this  is  trying  to  do 
by  law  what  God  requires  us  to  do  ourselves. 

I  look  with  the  greatest  concern  upon  the 
tendency  to  commercialize  the  government  of 
our  city.  It  sounds  very  plausible  and  reason- 
able at  first  thought.  The  city  is  nothing  but 
a  big  business.  Therefore,  all  we  have  to  do  is 
to  hire  a  few  experts,  just  as  the  manufacturer 
hires  the  heads  of  departments  to  run  his  busi- 
ness, and  all  the  vexed  problems  of  municipal 
government  are  solved.  This  conception  of  the 
city  looks  very  sane  until  we  come  to  analyze  it. 
The  city  conducts  certain  forms  of  business, 
it  is  true,  and  such  business  should  be  managed 


lia  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

honestly  and  competently,  but  is  the  city  itself 
a  business?  That  I  deny.  The  city  is  a  spir- 
itual entity ;  it  has  a  soul.  It  may  be  right- 
eous, it  may  be  evil  to  the  core,  quite  apart 
from  the  honest  booh^^f  eping  of  its  municipal 
affairs.  What  the  Lord  demanded  in  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  was  righteous  men.  He  de- 
stroyed the  cities  of  the  plain  because  the  souls 
of  those  cities  were  blasted  by  sin.  They  might 
have  had  an  expert  at  the  head  of  every  city 
department,  and  still  the  city  might  not  have 
had  enough  soul  left  to  save.  Nineveh  was 
saved  because  it  repented  in  sackcloth  and 
ashes.  The  modern  city  needs  repentance  and 
righteousness  very  much  more  than  it  needs  sci- 
entific management,  though  I  do  not  say  that 
it  does  not  need  that,  too.  We  must  not,  how- 
ever, confuse  the  two  or  think  for  a  moment 
that  they  are  identical.  When  you  do  that, 
you  destroy  the  very  fundamental  idea  of  de- 
mocracy, the  principle  of  self-government,  the 
participation  in  government  by  the  people 
themselves. 

Because  I  believe  so  profoundly  that  personal 
righteousness  must  be  at  the  basis  of  all  good 
government,  I  hold  that  the  most  important  of 
all  civic  duties  and  responsibilities  is  the  sup- 
port of  that  civic  institution  out  of  which  right- 
eousness alone  can  proceed,  the  church.  Men 
have  come   to   regard  the   church  in  the   same 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  113 

light  in  which  they  regard  other  civic  institu- 
tions, as  a  right  and  not  as  a  duty.  There  are 
few  people  in  any  community  who  are  actually 
hostile  to  the  church.  They  may  criticise  it 
freely,  usually  without  any  accurate  knowledge 
of  what  they  criticise,  but  they  recognize  its 
value  to  the  city  and  they  accept  complacently 
the  service  which  it  renders  to  them  and  to  their 
children  and  to  the  community  at  large,  with- 
out any  sense  of  obligation  in  return.  There 
are  many  even  who  were  brought  up  in  the 
church,  who  know  in  their  hearts  what  it  means 
to  the  city,  who  are  aware  of  the  unselfish  serv- 
ice which  it  renders,  who  know  that  it  is  the 
only  source  of  spiritual  refreshment,  the  only 
barrier  against  the  fierce  tides  of  sin,  who  know 
all  these  things,  but  who  are  yet  indifferent, 
who  fail  to  do  anything  for  its  support.  I 
realize  how  insistent,  how  seductive,  are  the 
claims  of  the  world  at  the  present  time.  I  real- 
ize that  it  means  a  sacrifice  to  give  up  the  Sun- 
day outing,  to  rise  in  time  to  attend  the  service 
of  the  church,  to  give  the  money  required  for  its 
support.  To  be  sure,  there  have  been  times 
when  men  gave  their  lives  in  the  arena,  when 
they  were  burned  at  the  stake  for  the  church. 
These  might  be  inclined  to  smile,  as  they  wear 
their  crowns  of  martyrdom,  at  the  use  of  the 
word  "  sacrifice  "  to  indicate  the  giving  up  of  a 
day  of  pleasure  or  an  hour  of  sleep.     But  we 


114  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

will  let  that  pass.  We  will  admit  that  it  is  a 
great  sacrifice  today,  amid  the  many  calls  of 
our  modern  life,  to  attend  church  and  to  sup- 
port the  church.  Then  I  want  to  ask, —  what 
of  it.?  It  will  be  a  bitter  day  for  the  city,  for 
humanity  at  large,  when  the  word  "  sacrifice  " 
is  erased  from  our  vocabulary.  We  cannot 
have  anything  worth  while  without  making  sac- 
rifices for  it.  The  man  who  is  indifferent  to- 
ward the  Father's  house,  who  is  tempted  to 
substitute  anything,  I  do  not  care  what  it  is, 
for  the  church,  will  pay  the  penalty,  as  sure  as 
there  is  a  God  in  the  heavens,  and  the  city  in 
which  he  lives  will  pay  the  penalty. 

The  civic  crown  which  the  poet  wore  in  "  In 
Memoriam  "  was  a  "  crown  of  thorns." 

*'  I  wander 'd  from  the  noisy  town, 

I  found  a  wood  with  thorny  boughs; 
I  took  the  thorns  to  bind  my  brows, 
I  wore  them  like  a  civic  crown: 

I  met  with  scoffs,  I  met  with  scorns. 
From  youth  and  babe  and  hoary  hairs: 
They  called  me  in  the  public  squares 

The  fool  that  wears  the  crown  of  thorns: 

They  called  me  fool,  they  called  me  child : 

I  found  an  angel  of  the  night; 

The  voice  was  low,  the  look  was  bright; 
He  looked  upon  my  crown  and  smiled." 


AND  CIVIC  PKIDE  115 

We  must  learn  again  that  without  the  crown 
of  thorns  there  is  no  victory,  without  sacrifice 
there  is  no  salvation.  The  huge  bulk  of  the 
city,  its  masses  of  population,  its  smoking  fac- 
tories, all  these  are  a  source  of  weakness,  unless 
the  spirit  of  sacrifice  pervades  the  whole. 

When  I  think  of  the  perils  which  threaten  the 
city  in  our  modern  times  I  am  not  so  concerned 
about  the  alien.  The  man  I  fear  is  the  native- 
born,  with  his  education  and  his  refinement,  with 
his  wealth,  earned  by  the  sweat  of  the  alien's 
brow  and  used  to  purchase  all  the  apparatus 
of  pleasure;  the  man  who  uses  the  Lord's  day 
exclusively  for  his  own  enjoyment,  who  turns 
his  back  upon  the  church  which  his  fathers 
toiled  and  sacrificed  to  give  to  the  community ; 
who  treats  his  obligations,  civic  and  religious, 
with  indifference  and  contempt.  He  is  the  man 
to  fear  in  our  civilization.  Upon  him  will  rest 
the  punishment  which  the  Lord  God  will  visit 
upon  our  modern  cities.  He  will  pay  the  price, 
and  he  will  pay  it  to  the  last  drop  of  blood. 

Again,  on  the  personal  side,  the  indifference 
of  the  rich  to  civic  duties,  the  selfish  exercise 
of  personal  rights,  the  gratification  of  the 
senses  in  extravagance  and  luxury  is  one  of  the 
most  menacing  perils  of  our  modern  times. 
What  is  the  cause  of  the  restlessness  of  labor, 
what  is  the  cause  of  the  deep-rooted  hostility 
between  the  classes.?     What  is  the  cause  of  the 


116  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ominous  outbreaks  between  capital  and  labor? 
It  is  not  simply  that  men  are  obliged  to  work. 
The  normal  man  is  only  too  glad  to  work  and 
to  work  hard  for  his  daily  bread.  The  average 
man  does  not  envy  the  rich.  The  trouble  comes 
through  the  enormous  and  reckless  waste  of 
the  rich  in  extravagant  living.  What  grinds 
the  poor  is  the  expenditure  of  the  surplus 
earned  by  labor  for  useless  luxury  in  the  very 
face  of  a  desperate  and  starving  people.  At  a 
banquet  in  London  recently,  sterlets,  a  kind  of 
small  sturgeon,  were  served.  These  fish  were 
brought  alive  from  Russia,  and  dropped  alive 
into  the  frying  pan  after  the  custom  of  the  fine 
restaurants  of  Moscow.  They  cost  the  giver 
of  the  feast  $200  apiece,  and  the  entire  cost  of 
the  banquet  was  not  less  than  $10,000.  At 
about  the  same  time  a  poor  beggar  had  thrown 
himself  into  the  Thames  within  sight  of  the 
great  restaurants.  Another  of  the  Embank- 
ment wretches  had  been  a  witness  of  the  trag- 
edy. The  following  story  came  out  in  the  ex- 
amination of  the  man : 

"  His  name  was  Sutherland,  and  he  called  him- 
self a  *  general  laborer.'  He  said  he  lived  on  the 
Embankment:  he  slept  there  because  he  had  no 
money  to  pay  for  lodgings  or  food.  '  Supposing 
it  is  cold  ? '  they  asked  him.  He  said  he  had  to 
put  up  with  that.     *  How  do  you  get  on  for  food  }  * 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  117 

was  the  coroner's  question.  Sutherland  answered, 
*  I  have  to  trust  to  Providence  for  that.  If  I 
can't  get  it  I  have  to  go  without.'  He  added  that 
he  had  been  out  of  work  for  several  weeks.  Then 
he  told  the  story  about  the  drowned  man.  Honey- 
ball.  At  about  a  quarter  to  three  in  the  morning 
Honeyball  came  and  sat  next  to  him  on  a  seat  on 
the  Embankment,  and  complained  that  he  had  had 
much  trouble,  and  nothing  whatever  to  eat  on  the 
previous  day,  and  was  very  hungry.  Sutherland 
knew  something  about  hunger,  and  —  perhaps  with 
an  expert's  contempt  —  observed,  *  Is  that  the  only 
day  you  have  been  without  tommy?  What  about 
me?  I  have  had  none  since  Wednesday.'  Wed- 
nesday was  four  days  past,  and  it  was  true  Suther- 
land had  eaten  nothing  for  these  four  days,  be- 
cause he  could  not  get  anything  to  eat.  Honey- 
ball  said  that,  anyhow,  he  was  getting  tired  of  it, 
and  should  not  put  up  with  it  much  longer.  He 
would  make  a  clean  job  and  finish  it.  Sutherland, 
with  whom  misery  was  commonplace,  told  him  not 
to  talk  nonsense;  but  Honeyball  rose  from  his  seat 
and  walked  towards  the  steps  of  the  Temple  Pier. 
Just  at  that  moment  a  miserable  woman  who  was 
sitting  dozing  on  one  of  the  seats  was  taken  ill, 
and  Sutherland  went  over  to  her.  Then  he  walked 
towards  the  steps,  and  saw  Honeyball  throw  up 
his  arms  and  take  a  header  into  the  river  and  dis- 
appear. He  gave  the  alarm.  Honeyball  was 
eventually  taken  out  dead.  At  half  past  five 
Sutherland  went  once  more  in  search  of  work. 
For  his  class,  he  was  a  respectable  man." 


118  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

I  myself  have  seen  these  hideous  wretches 
from  the  Embankment  come  up  to  the  Strand 
in  the  morning  to  search  the  cans  of  refuse 
awaiting  removal  on  the  sidewalk  for  a  morsel 
of  food.  It  is  indifference  to  this  awful  condi- 
tion of  life  in  a  great,  proud,  Christian  capital 
which  makes  the  trouble.  And  there  will  be  in- 
creasing trouble  until  the  rich  come  to  their 
senses  and  realize  that  citizenship  imposes  du- 
ties and  responsibilities,  the  evasion  of  which 
is  a  crime  against  God  and  humanity.  The 
right  to  reckless  extravagance  may  be  recog- 
nized today  under  the  law  of  democracy,  but  the 
man  who  exercises  that  right  in  a  spirit  of  in- 
solent disregard  for  the  sufferings  of  his  fellow- 
men,  is  digging  the  pit  whicih  will  destroy  him 
and  his  class. 

I  am  not  pessimistic  in  regard  to  the  future. 
I  believe  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
thousands  who  are  now  indifferent  to  civic  and 
spiritual  duty  will  realize  to  the  full  their  re- 
sponsibility. The  Church  will  not  stand  sim- 
ply upon  the  defensive.  It  will  take  the  of- 
fensive against  those  ancient  evils,  the  saloon 
and  the  brothel,  which  men  have  come  to  regard 
through  tradition  and  evil  custom  as  possessing 
civic  rights.  We  shall  learn  in  time  that  noth- 
ing which  makes  for  evil  in  the  community,  noth- 
ing which  exercises  a  corrupting  and  demoral- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  119 

izing    influence,    has     any     rights     which     the 
community  as  a  whole  is  bound  to  respect. 

There  is  one  mistaken  idea  against  which  we 
must  constantly  guard.  We  must  cease  to  un- 
derestimate the  power  and  importance  of  the 
individual  in  civic  aff^airs.  Every  year  great 
opportunities  are  lost,  great  reforms  go  down 
to  defeat,  because  individuals  say  in  discourage- 
ment, "  I  can  do  nothing  personally.  My  vote 
or  my  influence  does  not  count."  The  aggre- 
gate of  those  who,  in  indiff^erence  and  in  dis- 
couragement, do  not  even  exercise  the  franchise 
is  always  sufficient  to  win  any  contest  for  the 
cause  of  civic  righteousness.  Let  us  not  be  dis- 
couraged because  progress  seems  to  be  slow. 
That  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  great  law  of  service 
and  freedom.  Every  act  of  real  service  ren- 
dered, whether  it  be  to  the  beggar  in  the  street, 
or  whether  it  be  a  blow  struck  valiantly  against 
some  ancient  wrong,  leads  up  to  the  final  tri- 
umph. Let  us  work  then,  patiently  and 
bravely,  in  the  spirit  of  that  fine  poem  of  Sill's, 
"  The  Reformer." 

*'  Before  the  monstrous  wrong  he  sits  him  down, 

One  man  against  a  stone- walled  city  of  sin. 

For  centuries  those  walls  have  been  a-building; 

Smooth  porphyry  they  slope,  and  coldly  glass 

The  flying  storm  and  wheeling  sun. 

No  chink,  no  crevice  lets  the  thinnest  arrow  in. 


laO  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

He  fights  alone,  and  from  the  cloudy  ramparts 
A  thousand  evil  faces  grin  and  jeer  at  him. 
Let  him  lie  down  and  die:     What  is  the  right. 
And  where  is  justice,  in  a  world  like  this? 
But  by  and  by   earth   shakes   herself  impatient. 
And  down  in  one  great  roar  of  ruin,  crash 
Watch-tower  and  citadel  and  battlements. 
When  the  red  dust  has  cleared,  the  lonely  soldier 
Stands  with  strange  thoughts  beneath  the  friendly 
stars." 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  CIVIC  ADOLESCENCE 

A  young  man  void  of  understanding. —  Proverbs  7:7. 

The  period  of  growth  which  we  call  adoles- 
cence is  one  which  is  peculiarly  subject  to  temp- 
tation and  folly.  As  the  author  of  Proverbs 
puts  it,  many  young  men  at  this  period  are 
"  void  of  understanding."  They  are  lacking 
in  judgment  and  common-sense.  They  do  and 
say  silly  things.  They  despise  the  wise  counsel 
of  their  elders.  Evil  at  this  time  has  a  peculiar 
glamour  and  attractiveness.  The  virtues  seem 
old-fashioned  and  slow.  To  be  "  tough,"  to  go 
in  fast  company,  to  drink  a  little,  to  be  profane, 
to  commit  the  common  vices,  seems  to  them  the 
essence  of  manliness.  I  need  not  say  that  this 
is  an  age  of  peculiar  peril.  Many  a  life  is 
ruined  just  at  this  point.  It  is  true  that  many 
"  sow  their  wild  oats  "  and  settle  down  into  so- 
ber and  successful  men.  But  they  must  pay 
the  price.  The  price  is  an  inherent  physical 
and  moral  weakness  which  is  always  a  handicap, 
which  brings  suffering  and  sorrow  to  others  as 

well  as  to  themselves,  and  which  is  often  the 
121 


ISa  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

sad  legacy  which  is  handed  down  to  children 
and  to  children's  children. 

I  think  we  may  draw  a  very  close  analogy 
between  this  critical  period  in  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual and  a  similar  period  in  the  life  of  the 
community.  There  are  hundreds  of  communi- 
ties in  our  country  which  are  passing  through 
the  critical  stage  of  adolescence  today.  It  is 
characteristic,  indeed,  of  the  majority  of  our 
American  cities.  The  great  prosperity  of  the 
country  has  resulted  in  sudden  and  unprece- 
dented growth.  The  towns  are  becoming  cities, 
and  the  smaller  cities  are  very  rapidly  becoming 
larger  cities.  The  readjustments  which  must 
be  made  in  the  social  as  well  as  in  the  individual 
organism  bring  in  their  train  peculiar  and  sub- 
tle perils.  The  city  is  growing  up.  It  is  not 
so  many  years  ago  that  it  had  the  atmosphere, 
the  consciousness,  the  propriety  of  the  old-fash- 
ioned village.  Those  were  days  of  comparative 
innocence,  of  careful  restraint,  of  moral  ob- 
servance. We  cannot  keep  our  communities  in 
this  stage.  We  do  not  want  to  keep  them  there. 
The  village  had  its  peculiar  disadvantages,  its 
provincialism,  its  petty  vices,  just  as  childhood 
has  its  own  limitations  and  vices.  Growth  is  a 
healthy  sign,  a  sign  of  life  and  power.  We  re- 
joice in  the  vigorous  expansion  of  the  life  of 
the  community,  but  we  must  not  be  blind  to  the 
perils  of  growth. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  123 

There  is  danger  in  a  lack  of  civic  conscious- 
ness and  pride.  Many  of  the  individual  faults 
of  the  "  young  man  void  of  understanding " 
come  from  a  lack  of  personal  dignity.  He  is 
almost  a  man,  but  he  does  not  put  aside  child- 
ish things.  He  has  no  vision  of  the  opportuni- 
ties and  responsibilities  of  manhood.  He  does 
foolish  things,  not  so  much  because  his  heart  is 
evil,  as  because  he  has  no  sobering  sense  of  what 
life  means.  So  it  is  with  the  communal  life  of 
many  a  growing  city.  It  has  no  sense  of  civic 
responsibility,  no  broad  vision  of  what  a  great 
city  should  be.  It  is  absorbed  in  trivial  things. 
It  often  takes  its  own  government  as  a  joke. 
It  does  not  consider  wisely  the  needs  of  the 
growing  community  and  plan  for  the  distant 
future.  It  commits  many  of  the  follies  of  the 
youth  "  devoid  of  understanding."  Its  policy 
is  not  statesmanlike  and  broad.  It  considers 
the  claims  not  of  the  many  but  of  the  few.  It 
"  takes  care  "  of  its  friends,  while  the  larger 
public  suffers.  It  works  along  lines  of  personal 
interests.  Those  who  "  stand  in  with  the  ma- 
chine "  receive  favors  while  great  public  im- 
provements are  neglected.  It  permits,  for 
example,  the  public  streets  to  be  torn  up  con- 
stantly by  private  companies  who  inconvenience 
the  public  and  offer  nothing  in  return.  The 
city  gives  away  the  most  valuable  franchises 
without   restrictions,   and  then  its   citizens   go 


IM  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

into  paroxysms  of  wholly  unavailing  rage  be- 
cause they  are  herded  into  street  cars  like  cattle 
and  subjected  to  all  kinds  of  inconveniences  and 
extortions.  This  is  the  characteristic  improvi- 
dence of  adolescence.  We  smile  in  our  superior 
wisdom  at  the  naive  confidence  of  the  young 
man  Moses  in  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  who 
exchanged  his  horse  for  a  gross  of  green  spec- 
tacles, but  his  verdant  and  childlike  innocence 
was  as  nothing  compared  with  the  unsophisti- 
cated confidence  shown  by  our  adolescent  cities 
in  parting  with  priceless  rights  and  privileges 
without  any  compensation  whatever.  When  we 
utter  our  vain,  childish  complaints  we  are  sim- 
ply informed  of  the  exceeding  value  of  patience 
as  a  virtue,  coupled  with  an  exhortation  to 
"  step  lively." 

The  city  commits,  like  the  young  man  "  void 
of  understanding,"  gross  offenses  against 
health,  and,  like  him,  it  pays  the  inevitable  pen- 
alty. We  allow  unscrupulous  men  to  build 
disease-breeding  tenements  and  then  by  private 
charity  we  attempt  to  save  the  victims  of  tuber- 
culosis. We  spend  immense  sums  of  money  for 
water  supplies  and  then  permit  the  nearest 
farm  house  to  pollute  the  supply  with  the  deadly 
germs  of  typhoid  fever.  Like  the  prodigal 
young  man,  the  city  spends  its  money  lavishly, 
but  not  wisely.  We  underpay  our  most  impor- 
tant   and    indispensable    public    servants,    the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  125 

teachers  of  our  schools,  and  allow  millions  to 
slip  through  our  fingers  into  the  clutches  of 
greedy  and  unscrupulous  grafters.  All  these 
are  sins  of  youth.  They  bear  a  striking  re- 
semblance to  the  faults  of  the  adolescent,  "  the 
young  man  void  of  understanding."  Very 
much  of  the  striking  failure  of  our  modern  city 
life  comes,  not  from  conscious  wrong-doing,  but 
from  the  indifference,  the  lack  of  responsibility, 
which  is  characteristic  of  youth. 

The  city  solicitor  of  Haverhill,  Massachu- 
setts, in  recounting  the  striking  success  of  the 
commission  plan  of  government,  the  great  sav- 
ing of  the  city's  money  under  the  new  regime, 
makes  this  statement :  "  You  will  ask,  '  How 
did  this  happen?  Did  you  have  a  crowd  of 
grafters  who  were  robbing  you  ?  '  I  have  never 
seen  anything  which  I  could  actually  put  my  fin- 
ger on  in  the  way  of  stealing.  It  was  not 
stolen,  it  just  went,  just  as  any  man's  money 
will  leak  out  of  his  business,  and  he  will  assign, 
if  he  does  not  attend  to  his  business  or  if  he  has 
no  sort  of  business  management."  This  de- 
scribes exactly  the  average  city  government  in 
America ;  and  it  is  exactly  the  fault  of  a  lazy, 
good-natured,  spendthrift  youth.  Give  him 
money  and  it  goes.  He  does  not  know  exactly 
where  —  he  just  spends  it.  That  is  what  we 
have  done  in  our  American  city  governments. 
We  have  put  them  into  the  hands  of  the  ma- 


126  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

chine.  And  the  machine  has  stood  usually, 
where  it  has  not  been  actually  bad  and  vicious, 
for  good-natured,  shiftless  incompetence. 
"Well,"  some  one  may  say,  "what  of  it.? 
What  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  church,  with 
religion.?  "  It  has  this  to  do  with  it.  God  has 
laid  upon  us  the  responsibility  of  the  city,  just 
as  he  lays  upon  the  father  and  the  mother  the 
responsibility  for  the  growing  child.  These 
things  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  immoral. 
It  is  just  as  wrong  for  a  community  to  sin  as 
for  an  individual  to  sin.  You  would  not  be 
indifferent  if  you  had  a  boy  "  devoid  of  under- 
standing," who  was  growing  up  to  be  a  great, 
idle,  dissolute,  vicious,  spendthrift  character. 
You  know  that  the  habits  of  youth  become  fixed 
in  manhood.  You  would  get  down  on  your 
knees  and  pray  most  fervently  to  God  for  the 
salvation  of  that  child.  Did  it  ever  occur  to 
you  to  pray  as  earnestly  for  the  salvation  of 
your  city.?  Habit  tends  to  become  fixed  in 
municipal  life  as  well  as  in  individual  life.  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  throw  off  the  incubus  of 
bad  government.  There  is  nothing  so  hard  as 
to  clean  up  the  morals  of  a  city  after  it  has 
grown  up  in  the  habit  of  evil  doing.  By  a 
strange  kind  of  perverted  psychology,  evil 
comes  to  seem  good,  or  at  least  better  than  any 
attempt  at  change.  We  have  always  had  the 
saloons,  for  example,  and  many  good  men  come 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  1^7 

to  think  that  therefore  we  must  always  have 
them.  It  is  a  bad  habit  fixed  by  immemorial 
custom  on  the  community,  as  the  "  old  man  of 
the  sea  "  was  fixed  upon  the  back  of  Sinbad, 
until  at  last  we  grow  resigned  and  think  it  inev- 
itable. That  is  why  this  period  in  the  life  of 
every  city  is  so  tremendously  important.  We 
are  forming  our  municipal  habits.  The  danger 
is  everywhere  that  we  shall  form  vicious,  care- 
less, extravagant,  inartistic,  unbusinesslike  hab- 
its. Our  mistakes  are  perpetuated.  If  you 
commit  an  architectural  sin  in  building  a  pub- 
lic building  your  folly  is  monumental  and  last- 
ing. It  stares  at  you  and  rebukes  you  when- 
ever you  see  it.  It  is  a  false  and  jarring  note, 
and  worse  than  that,  it  is  a  perpetual  lesson 
in  bad  taste  to  the  whole  community.  So  it  is 
with  all  forms  of  municipal  evil.  Dishonesty, 
carelessness,  extravagance,  graft,  in  public  life 
perpetuate  themselves.  They  are  a  moral  les- 
son which  the  young  men  are  not  slow  to  learn ; 
they  breed  the  same  sins  in  business  and  private 
life.  Municipal  dishonesty  and  immorality  are 
blows  at  the  Church  and  at  Christianity. 

I  have  tried  to  show  that  there  is  in  our  young 
and  growing  cities  a  great  danger  from  a  lack 
of  civic  consciousness  and  pride.  There  is  no 
conscious  civic  dignity,  no  striving  toward  the 
highest  ideals  of  civic  worth.  The  city  blun- 
ders along,  like  a  "  youth  devoid  of  understand- 


1^8  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ing,"  making  its  government  a  jest,  spending 
its  money  foolishly,  sinning  against  the  great 
fundamental  commandments  which  underlie  in- 
dividual and  public  morality. 

In  every  growing  community  there  is  danger 
which  comes  from  another  source,  a  lack  of 
moral  consciousness,  a  lowering  of  the  standards 
of  righteousness  and  honor  on  the  individual 
and  social  sides  of  life.  In  every  community 
which  outgrows  the  village  life  there  comes  into 
being  a  "  fast  set."  These  people  have  inher- 
ited, or  acquired  suddenly,  great  wealth.  Go 
back  a  generation  or  so  and  you  find,  perhaps, 
some  immigrant  grandfather  working  in  a  cor- 
ner grocery  or  in  a  little  tannery  or  grog  shop, 
a  man  who  by  patient  and  unremitting  industry 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  fortunes  which  these 
people  now  enjoy.  They  proceed  to  form 
themselves  into  a  near-aristocracy,  a  sham, 
veneered  nobility,  an  exclusive,  snobbish,  imi- 
tation of  society.  This  sham  society  in  its 
general  characteristics  resembles  strikingly  the 
youth  "  devoid  of  understanding."  It  pos- 
sesses all  the  faults  and  none  of  the  virtues  of 
adolescence.  It  sneers  at  the  church  and  all 
for  which  the  church  stands.  It  despises  the 
old-fashioned  virtues  of  industry,  sobriety,  tem- 
perance. This  class  is  very  effectively  char- 
acterized by  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  English 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  129 

authoresses,  as  it  appears  when  it  crosses  the 
Atlantic  and  disports  itself  on  British  soil. 
Marie  Corelli  says: 

*'  In  Warwickshire  where  I  reside,  and  in  the 
neighboring  counties  around,  I  could  name  cer- 
tain Americans  who,  if  they  are  not  hunting  or 
horse  racing,  are  gambling  at  bridge  all  day  — 
who  are  vulgar,  illiterate  and  arrogant,  and  who 
have  not  the  slightest  intelligent  perception  of  any- 
thing under  the  sun.  They  measure  the  world  and 
God  himself  by  a  money  standard  only,  and  as- 
sert by  their  looks  and  manners  their  fixed  belief 
that  they  can  buy  honor  itself  for  so  much  cash 
down.  Again,  in  smart  society,  as  it  is  euphoni- 
ously called,  one  comes  across  wealthy  American 
women  who  comport  themselves  with  less  consid- 
eration and  tact  than  domestic  servants,  whose 
neglect  of  the  simplest  rules  of  courtesy  is  so 
colossal  that  one  blushes  for  their  ignorance.  I  do 
not  like  this  sort  of  people,  whether  they  be  Amer- 
icans or  British,  and  I  say  so  at  once  with  frank- 
ness and  emphasis." 

That  this  class  of  people  does  exist  and  is  an 
increasing  class  in  all  our  growing  American 
cities  no  one  can  doubt.  If  these  people  simply 
went  their  own  way,  gambled  and  dissipated 
away  their  own  money,  and  finally  landed  as 
most  of  them  ultimately  do,  in  the  divorce  court 
and  the  court  of  bankrupts,  we  might  let  them 


130  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

alone  and  quietly  go  our  own  way  to  our  simple 
forms  of  pleasure  and  our  antiquated  ideas  of 
morality.  Unfortunately,  however,  these  peo- 
ple form  an  important  and  aggressive  part  of 
our  civic  society.  They  taint  the  air.  They 
corrupt  the  youth.  Their  vicious  and  extrav- 
agant habits,  like  all  bad  habits,  tend  to  become 
fixed  in  our  civic  life.  It  is  astonishing  to  find 
how  many  people  are  led  away,  if  not  actually 
into  this  class,  at  least  into  an  imitation  of 
their  vices  and  bad  manners.  There  are  many 
foolish  women  of  good  family  and  good  breeding 
who  are  fascinated  by  this  kind  of  fast  life  and 
are  drawn  into  it  as  the  moth  is  drawn  into  the 
flame  of  the  candle.  This  class  sets  up  for  the 
community  a  standard  of  extravagance  in  liv- 
ing which  is  wholly  false  and  pernicious.  The 
old  community  ideals  of  righteousness  and 
economy  and  sobriety  and  Sabbath-keeping 
break  down  under  the  attack.  Young  men 
with  small  salaries  are  led  into  ajl  sorts  of  dis- 
honesty in  order  to  "  keep  up  with  the  proces- 
sion." Men  and  women  a  few  years  ago  could 
enjoy  simple  things,  they  took  their  pleasures 
simply,  they  read  books,  they  had  some  higher 
thoughts  and  aspirations.  All  this  is  now 
voted  slow.  The  church  suffers,  because  the 
last  thing  which  this  set  desires  to  think  about 
is  their  own  souls  and  the  approaching  judg- 
ment.    The  sins  of  this  class  are  the  sins  of  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  131 

"  youth  devoid  of  understanding."  They  bum 
the  candle  at  both  ends.  They  mistake  a  cheap 
and  tawdry  pleasure  for  life  and  its  great  con- 
cerns. They  squander  their  God-given  re- 
sources in  physical  and  spiritual  dissipation. 
What  would  an  entire  community  be  like  if  dom- 
inated by  these  false  and  dangerous  standards 
of  life  ?  Would  you  want  to  live  in  such  a  com- 
munity.? Would  you  want  your  children  to 
grow  up  in  it.?  You  could  not  live  in  it  long, 
because  it  would  suffer  the  fate  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah.  It  would  be  blasted  and  shrivelled 
by  the  fires  of  its  own  evil  passions.  Do  you 
want  these  standards  to  dominate  and  control 
the  life  of  the  community  in  which  you  live.? 
Then  see  to  it  that  you  take  every  opportunity 
to  repudiate  them.  See  to  it  that  you  are  not 
in  any  way  yourself  deceived  and  tempted  by 
them.  See  to  it  that  your  growing  children 
are  brought  up  upon  the  old-fashioned  virtues 
of  industry  and  sobriety  and  the  fear  of  God. 
The  intelligent,  respectable  Christian  people  of 
every  community  have  a  great  responsibility 
in  this  matter.  If  the  city  is  to  be  saved  from 
the  follies  and  indiscretions  and  depravity  of  a 
"  youth  devoid  of  understanding,"  then  see  to 
it,  men  and  women,  that  you  keep  yourselves 
clean  and  near  to  God.  Then  see  to  it  that 
your  ideals,  and  not  base  and  destructive  tenden- 
cies prevail.     We  are  to  ask  ourselves  this  ques- 


im  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

tion:  Has  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  growth 
of  our  city,  its  growth  in  moral  worth,  in  the 
things  which  abide,  been  commensurate  with  its 
growth  in  population  and  in  wealth?  It  does 
not  take  the  keenness  of  the  prophet  to  discern 
certain  undesirable  tendencies  which  are  creep- 
ing into  our  political  life.  Let  us  beware  how 
we  despise  the  virtues,  the  honesty,  the 
incorruptibility,  the  simplicity,  of  the  days 
which  are  past.  You  cannot  build  perma- 
nent success  upon  any  other  foundation  than 
civic  dignity  and  responsibility  and  morality. 
What  is  a  desirable  growth  for  a  city.'^ 
Is  it  not  that  it  may  be  a  place  of  safety, 
where  the  sanctity  of  the  home  is  maintained, 
a  place  wherein  children  may  grow,  aided  by 
educators,  stimulated  by  high  ideals,  to  full 
and  gracious  and  beautiful  maturity,  a  place 
in  which  wealth  and  power  serve  the  great 
causes  of  religion  and  morality,  a  place 
where  the  people  are  happy  and  industrious 
and  prosperous,  a  place  where  poverty  is 
without  a  sting  and  wealth  devoid  of  ostenta- 
tion, a  place  where  there  is  no  aristocracy  save 
the  aristocracy  of  worth,  a  place  in  which  men 
love  God  and  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  his  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  a  community  which  grows  nobly, 
proudly,  consciously  toward  the  high  ideals  of 
righteousness  and  faith?  If  that  is  your  idea 
of  what  a  city  ought  to  be,  then  say  so,  and  say 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  133 

so  with  emphasis.  If  that  is  your  idea,  see 
that  citizens  who  are  worthy  are  elected  to 
municipal  office,  that  the  business  of  the  city 
may  be  conducted  upon  a  high  plane  of  service 
for  all  and  not  for  a  few.  If  that  is  your  idea 
pray  to  Almighty  God  that  he  will  save  your 
city  from  the  sins  of  youth  and  direct  in  the 
ways  of  righteousness  and  faith,  and  honor  and 
service. 


XI 

A  RIGHTEOUS  MACHINE 

And  he  said,  "Oh  let  not  the  Lord  be  angry,  and  I 
will  speak  but  this  once.  Peradventure  ten  shall  6« 
found  there/'  And  he  said,  "I  will  not  destroy  it  for 
«en/'— Genesis  18:32. 

Ten  good  men  would  have  saved  the  city  of 
Sodom  from  destruction.  Ten  righteous  souls 
would  have  been  leaven  enough  to  have  redeemed 
the  whole  great  evil  mass  from  the  threatening 
doom.  This  story  should  be  at  once  a  warning 
and  an  inspiration.  We  are  always  underesti- 
mating the  power  and  influence  of  the  righteous 
minority.  We  forget  that  God  often  uses  the 
most  insignificant  agencies  to  accomplish  his 
great  ends.  The  sneer  of  the  pessimist,  as  old 
as  Tacitus,  echoed  by  Napoleon,  "  God  is  on 
the  side  of  the  heaviest  battalions,"  has  been 
proved  false  over  and  over  again  in  history. 
God  is  on  the  side  of  the  right,  and  if  the 
wrong  triumphs  momentarily,  its  coming  doom 
is  written  in  heaven  and  God  uses  what  seem  to 
be  the  weakest  and  frailest  instruments  to  bring 

about  its  ruin.     The  man  who  fights  alone,  the 
134 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  135 

man  with  his  back  against  the  wall,  with  right 
on  his  side,  is  the  man  who  makes  history. 
David  and  his  shepherd's  sling,  the  handful  of 
heroes  at  Thermopylae,  Luther  at  Worms, 
Thomas  a  Becket  —  his  blood  staining  the  floor 
of  Canterbury, —  Joan  of  Arc,  Garrison  in  his 
little  printing  office ;  yes,  and  the  Man  of  Naza- 
reth with  his  crown  of  thorns  and  his  nail- 
pierced  hands,  such  are  the  despised  and  hum- 
ble agencies  God  uses  to  redeem  the  world  from 
its  selfishness  and  lead  the  van  of  freedom.  God 
calls  for  the  ten  righteous  men,  the  valiant,  un- 
daunted, righteous  minority,  and  with  them  he 
will  redeem  and  regenerate  any  community. 
This  is  the  essential  fact  which  we  do  not  un- 
derstand. The  most  discouraging  thing  about 
all  attempts  at  social  and  religious  reform  is 
the  apathy  of  the  good  men  of  the  community. 
For,  mark  you,  the  ten  men  whom  God  will  use 
must  be  valiant  souls,  not  petty  creatures;  not 
dead  men;  not  a  lot  of  frightened  and  silly 
sheep;  not  men  so  timid  and  conservative  that 
they  dare  not  say  that  their  souls  are  their 
own. 

In  every  community  there  are  not  only  ten 
men,  but  actually  a  majority  of  righteous  men, 
but  they  are  so  used  to  being  dominated  and 
overpowered  by  less  scrupulous  but  more  cour- 
ageous men  that  they  count  for  nothing. 
What  is  the  attitude  of  the  average  man  in  our 


136  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

American  cities  toward  civic  affairs?  His  at- 
titude is  an  apathy,  an  indifference  which  is  ab- 
solutely appalling.  If  the  Lord  should  come 
to  him  and  say,  "  Are  you  a  righteous  man  ? 
Will  you  be  one  of  ten  to  stand  for  the  best 
things  in  your  community,  to  strike  a  blow  for 
purity  and  honor?  "  he  would  say  — "  Well, 
really,  you  must  excuse  me.  I  am  so  busy,  and 
it  is  all  cut  and  dried.  It's  no  use  for  me  to 
go  to  the  caucus,  and  I  am  so  busy,  really  what 
is  the  use?  Good-day."  Would  the  Lord  count 
him  among  the  ten?  I  think  not.  This  is  the 
attitude  of  the  average  man,  too  busy,  or  too 
indifferent,  or  too  discouraged,  or  too  lazy  to 
take  any  part  in  the  government  of  his  own  city. 
Why  is  interest  essential?  Because  we  live  in  a 
democracy,  because  our  cities  are  great  fami- 
lies, and  they  are  good  or  bad  as  the  people 
make  them.  Because  every  man  is  equally  re- 
sponsible before  God  for  the  government  of  his 
city.  If  we  are  to  have  righteous  cities,  there 
is  no  method  under  heaven  by  which  that  end 
may  be  attained  except  by  the  earnest  efforts 
of  consecrated  and  devoted  men.  What  makes 
a  successful  business?  The  energy,  the  cour- 
age, the  faith,  the  hard  work,  which  men  put 
into  it.  If  a  man  came  down  to  his  office  only 
once  a  month,  if  he  said,  "  What  is  the  use  in 
trying  to  sell  goods  anyhow,  the  other  fellow 
sells  more  than  I  do !  "  how  long  would  his  busi- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  137 

ness  last?  How  much  success  would  he  win? 
It  is  the  man  who  stays  on  the  job,  who  is  just 
as  interested  and  enthusiastic  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  as  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, who  neglects  no  detail  of  organization,  who 
takes  an  interest  in  every  employee ;  —  that  is 
the  business  man  who  succeeds. 

Now  in  the  city  we  have  a  great  business, 
great  not  only  in  the  economic  and  commercial 
aspects,  but  in  its  social  and  moral  aspects  also. 
A  tremendous  social  force  resides  in  the  city,  a 
force  which  may  destroy  life  or  redeem  it.  It 
may,  like  Sodom,  grow  so  evil,  so  corrupt,  so 
utterly  irremediably  bad  and  vicious  that  it 
is  finally  destroyed  in  the  flames  of  wrath  which 
its  own  wickedness  has  engendered,  or  it  may  be 
the  glorious  city  of  God,  instinct  with  power, 
splendid  in  service,  developing  grandly  the  lives 
of  all  its  children,  shielding  them  from  evil,  edu- 
cating them  in  all  good  things,  ministering  to 
the  sense  of  beauty,  stimulating  the  best  and 
highest  powers,  shining  like  a  beacon  from  its 
hill  top,  the  joy  and  inspiration  of  the  whole 
earth.  Such  was  Jerusalem  before  it  crucified 
on  its  accursed  hill  the  Redeemer  of  all  the  earth, 
such  was  Venice  before  it  was  corrupted  and 
weakened  by  wealth  and  commercial  prosperity, 
such  was  Florence  before  it  burned  its  prophets 
and  exiled  its  immortal  genius,  such  was  Rome 
before  civic  depravity  and  unspeakable  wicked- 


138  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ness  corrupted  its  ancient  virtue  and  destroyed 
the  courage  of  its  iron  legions. 

How  hard  it  is  for  us  to  understand  that  the 
responsibility  rests  upon  us  for  the  great  issues 
of  civic  life  or  death.  As  never  before  in  his- 
tory the  destiny  of  the  city  is  in  the  hands  of 
its  average  citizen.  How  does  he  meet  this  ob- 
ligation.'^ He  is  often  not  interested  enough 
in  his  own  city  and  in  its  important  affairs  even 
to  vote.  I  was  told  of  a  young  man,  a  gradu- 
ate of  our  high  school,  a  member  of  one  of  our 
best  families,  who,  when  asked  to  register,  re- 
plied that  he  would  not  take  the  trouble  to 
register  and  vote  if  his  own  brother  were  run- 
ning for  office.  That  man  is  a  traitor  to  the 
best  interests  of  his  city  and  of  the  republic. 
He  ought  to  be  subjected  to  fine  and  imprison- 
ment. But  the  excuse  is  offered  again,  "  What 
is  the  use,  when  we  are  always  beaten.?"  My 
answer  is,  I  would  go  to  the  caucus  and  to  the 
polls  and  cast  my  vote  for  what  I  believe  to  be 
the  best  interests  of  the  community,  if  I  were  a 
minority  of  one  and  all  the  rest  of  the  city  stood 
against  me. 

The  average  man,  the  good  man  of  the  com- 
munity claims  that  he  stays  away  from  cau- 
causes  because  they  are  manipulated,  because 
some  one  has  cut  and  dried  the  action  in  ad- 
vance. This  is  simply  an  admission  that  the 
enemies  of  good  government  are  wiser  and  more 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  139 

enterprising  than  the  children  of  light.  We 
talk  with  righteous  indignation  about  the  evil 
of  machine  politics.  What  we  should  denounce 
is  not  the  machine  but  the  type  of  men  who  use 
it.  What  is  a  machine  ?  Simply  an  instrument 
by  means  of  which  men  of  vigor  and  ability  get 
things  done.  There  is  nothing  wrong  in  that. 
There  is  very  much  of  good.  God  wants  things 
done,  and  he  uses  the  great  machinery  of  the 
universe  to  get  them  done.  There  is  no  piety 
in  sitting  down  and  waiting  because  things  are 
not  as  they  should  be.  There  is  no  virtue  in 
simply  denouncing  machine  politicians  because 
they  are  more  capable  and  determined  and  ef- 
ficient than  we  are.  How  do  they  accomplish 
their  ends?  By  efficient  organization.  There 
is  no  patent  on  organization.  Why  not  organ- 
ize the  forces  of  righteousness  as  eff^ectively  as 
the  forces  of  evil  are  organized  ?  Why  not  have 
a  righteous  machine?  And  just  as  good  a 
machine  as  the  unrighteous  possess.  It  simply 
means  consecrated  energy.  It  means  the  do- 
ing, without  money  or  hope  of  reward,  the  same 
things  which  the  practical  politician  does  with 
the  material  reward  in  view.  If  righteous  men 
are  unwilling  to  do  that,  if  they  are  so  deter- 
mined upon  apathy  and  indiff^erence  that  they 
will  give  no  time  or  money,  nor  deny  themselves 
leisure  and  amusement  for  the  cause  of  right- 
eousness in  civic  affairs,  why  let  us  say  so,  and 


140  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

turn  the  city  over  to  our  masters,  the  selfish 
and  ambitious  men  who  are  willing  to  put  in  the 
time  and  the  energy.  It  must  be  made  a  mat- 
ter of  patriotism.  Are  we  such  degenerate  sons 
of  the  men  who  gave  their  blood  freely  that  the 
nation  might  live  that  we  are  unwilling  to  do 
anything  today?  It  must  be  made  a  matter  of 
religious  conviction  and  faith.  What  higher 
cause  can  there  be  than  the  growth  of  the  com- 
munity in  righteousness  and  honor  and  power? 
We  pass  away,  but  the  city  lives  on,  bearing 
the  name  we  give  it,  of  honor  or  of  shame.  The 
fate  of  the  generations  is  bound  up  in  it.  The 
great  experiment  of  human  destiny  is  being  tried 
here.  Can  a  Christian  civilization  survive?  Is 
it  possible  for  the  forces  of  honor  and  sacrifice 
and  brotherliness  to  conquer  the  force  of  self- 
ishness and  good?  It  is  Christ  against  the 
brute.  It  is  evolution  against  the  pull  of  the 
beast.  But  what,  practically,  can  be  done? 
The  average  man  may  admit,  he  probably  does 
admit,  all  this,  the  importance  of  the  issues, 
the  gravity  of  the  situation,  but  still  he  asks 
forlornly,  "  How  can  I  do  anything?  "  He  is 
still  oppressed  by  the  sense  of  helplessness,  he 
is  alone  against  a  subtle,  powerful,  organized 
foe.  The  obvious  reply,  it  seems  to  me  again, 
is,  organize.  Would  it  be  impossible  to  find  a 
few,  the  scriptural  ten,  let  us  say,  in  each  pre- 
cinct of  the  city,  who  would  get  together,  ear- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  141 

nest,  single-hearted,  loyal  Christian  men  from 
all  the  churches,  who  should  form  a  good  gov- 
ernment club,  and  work  together,  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  city?  Nothing  of  any  importance 
is  accomplished  in  this  world  without  organiza- 
tion. Business  is  organized.  What  sort  of  a 
factory  would  it  be  in  which  every  man  should 
work  without  direction,  on  his  own  initiative? 
How  long  could  a  railroad  be  managed  without 
the  coordination  of  every  part  to  the  whole? 
Religion  is  organized.  The  first  thing  Jesus 
Christ  did  was  to  organize  his  work. 
He  formed  at  once  an  organization  of  men  for 
the  service  of  his  kingdom.  How  many  victo- 
ries would  an  army  win  if  there  were  no  organ- 
ization into  companies  and  regiments?  The 
reason  for  the  failure  of  good  men  who  are  in- 
terested in  civic  righteousness  is  perfectly  plain. 
Each  man  has  simply  thought  and  acted  on  his 
own  initiative.  The  great  current  of  righteous 
feeling,  of  Christian  sentiment,  has  been  di- 
verted into  a  thousand  feeble  trickling  rills,  in- 
stead of  rolling  on  in  one  stream,  an  irresistible 
force.  It  is  no  wonder  good  men  feel  discour- 
aged. To  go  to  the  caucus  or  to  the  polls  with- 
out organization  is  like  fighting  a  battle  in  the 
fog  without  sight  of  one's  comrades.  You  love 
your  city.  You  wish  it  well  governed.  You 
know  that  your  neighbor  has  similar  sentiments. 
But  there  is  no  driving  power  behind  this  senti- 


142  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

ment.  It  is  like  an  intangible,  delicate  perfume. 
But  what  you  want  is  driving  power,  the 
strength  of  the  10,000  horse  power  engine. 

What  would  such  a  good  government  club 
do.?  It  would,  first  of  all,  inform  itself  accu- 
rately in  regard  to  all  civic  problems.  The 
city  is  the  business  of  the  citizens,  but  how  many 
know  with  anything  like  the  accuracy  with  which 
they  know  their  own  business,  the  affairs  of  the 
city,  its  financial  status,  the  details  of  its  gov- 
ernment, the  character  of  the  men  in  authority  .^^ 
How  many  citizens  have  read  the  city  chi^rter, 
and  know  what  powers  it  grants,  and  what  it 
withholds.?  How  many  have  formed  an  opinion 
upon  the  commission  plan  of  government  or 
even  know  what  it  is.?  You  are  an  equal  part- 
ner in  a  great  business  and  it  is  your  duty  to 
know  accurately  the  details  of  that  business. 
Again,  such  a  club  could  say  to  existing  par- 
ties, "  You  must  nominate  for  office  only  those 
men  whose  character  is  above  reproach,  whose 
ability  is  unquestioned,  who  will  administer  the 
affairs  of  the  city  strictly  for  the  public  good. 
We  will  use  all  the  influence  we  possess  to  see 
such  men  nominated  and  elected  and  we  will 
oppose  any  man  unfit  for  office  with  all  our 
strength,  regardless  of  party.  The  motive 
power  of  such  an  organization  would  be  personal 
interest  in  good  government,  patriotism,  and  if 
men  can  be  found  in  times  of  stress  to  die  for 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  143 

the  country,  I  do  not  see  why  in  times  of  peace, 
men  cannot  be  found  who  will  live  and  work  for 
their  country. 

It  all  resolves  itself  ultimately  into  a  ques- 
tion of  consecrated  personality.  The  American 
citizen  is  absorbed  in  his  business,  he  is  pushing 
his  own  interests.  He  has  not  yet  reached  an 
understanding  of  what  the  city  really  is  and 
what  it  demands.  He  cannot  understand  that 
his  obligation  is  any  broader  than  his  own  home 
or  his  own  club  or  his  own  business  office.  In 
the  old  days  the  burghers  were  drawn  together 
by  a  sense  of  common  danger.  The  city  walls 
shut  the  citizen  in,  and  he  knew  that  the  time 
might  come  when  every  man  would  be  needed 
on  the  walls,  when  famine  and  plague  and  the 
desperate  assaults  of  the  foe  would  call  for  the 
last  reserves  of  courage  and  loyalty  and  faith. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  civic  consciousness  and  pride 
drew  the  citizens  together  and  found  expression 
in  those  glorious  monuments  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture which  were  built  by  the  labor  of  every 
citizen,  upon  whose  growing  walls  men  and 
women  alike  toiled,  and  whose  heaven- reaching 
spires  symbolized  the  faith  and  aspiration  of  the 
whole  community.  What  will  draw  the  citizens 
of  the  modern  city  together  with  a  common  pur- 
pose? What  but  a  deepening  religious  con- 
sciousness and  a  higher  loyalty  to  Jesus,  the 
leader  of  humanity.? 


144  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Every  day  the  problems  of  civilization  in- 
crease in  complexity.  It  is  coming  to  be  an 
impossibility  to  live  for  one's  self  alone.  A 
thousand  common  interests  draw  men  together. 
We  cannot  live  in  the  city  of  the  future  unless 
we  are  prepared  to  recognize  and  meet  our  re- 
sponsibility. Many  cities  are  turning  hope- 
fully to  the  commission  plan  of  government. 
But  the  solution  of  difficulties  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  laws  of  economics  nor  in  schemes  of  gov- 
ernment, but  in  consecrated,  Christ-filled  lives. 
The  giving  to  the  city  of  what  is  most  valuable, 
personality,  that  is  the  demand.  The  merging 
of  self  in  the  larger  good.  A  service  like  that 
which  was  given  to  the  city  of  New  York,  stead- 
ily, faithfully,  without  ostentation,  by  such  a 
man  as  Richard  Watson  Gilder. 

"  Heart  of  a  hero  in  a  poet's  frame, 
Soul  of  a  soldier  in  a  body  frail, — 
Thine  was  the  courage  clear  that  did  not  quail, 
Before  the  giant  Champions  of  Shame, 
Who   wrought  dishonor  to  the  city's  name: 
And  thine  the  vision  of  the  Holy  Grail, 
Of  love  revealed  through  music's   lucid  veil. 
Filling  thy  life  with  song  and  heavenly  flame. 
Pure  was  the  light  that  lit  thy  glowing  eye. 
Strong  was  the  faith  that  held  thy  simple  creed. 
Thou  lea  vest  two  great  gifts  that  will  not  die  — 
Amid  the  city's  noise,  thy  lyric  cry! 
Amid  the  city's  strife,  thy  noble  deed !  " 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  145 

Such  is  the  responsibility  of  the  average  man, 
amid  the  cares  of  business,  the  exacting  routine 
of  professional  life!  To  recognize  the  claims 
of  brotherhood,  to  accept  all  men,  high  or  low, 
as  sharers  in  the  city's  life,  to  take  up  the  bur- 
den of  participation  in  the  government  of  the 
city,  to  energize  constantly  for  the  enlighten- 
ment and  betterment  of  the  city.  The  doing 
of  it,  finally,  with  the  highest  and  most  unself- 
ish ends  in  view.  This  is  the  task  before  the 
average  man.  And  such  men  working  together, 
filled  with  faith  and  courage,  God  will  use  for 
the  undoing  of  evil,  for  the  coming  triumph  of 
righteousness  and  love. 


XII 

THE  CITY  OF  FRIENDS 

I  have  called  you  friends. —  John  15: 15. 

"  I  dreamed  that  I  saw  a  new  City  of 
Friends."  So  sang  Whitman,  the  modern  poet 
of  Democracy.  It  was  a  splendid  dream,  but 
you  must  go  back  for  its  inspiration  to  another 
dreamer  of  great  dreams  and  splendid  visions, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  You  must  go  back  to  the 
quiet  of  that  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem  in 
which  Jesus  had  gathered  his  disciples  for  the 
last  time.  "  I  have  called  you  friends."  Out 
of  the  silence  came  the  steady  voice  of  the  Mas- 
ter. "  No  longer  servants."  "  I  have  called 
you  friends."  The  words  were  revolutionary. 
They  struck  a  new  note  in  human  destiny.  They 
enunciated  for  the  first  time  in  history  the 
principle  that  apparently  radical  differences 
in  human  temperament  and  character  are  sub- 
ordinate to  what  is  common  in  the  heritance  of 
humanity.  The  fatherhood  of  God  does  not 
make  men  equal,  but  it  does  make  them  of  one 

blood,  it  is  the  unifying  principle  which  binds 
146 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  147 

them  together  as  a  race.  Mightier  than  all  dif- 
ferences, stronger  than  all  prejudices  and  dis- 
tinctions, is  the  bond  which  unites  men  as  sons 
of  a  common  father,  which  imposes  an  obliga- 
tion of  mutual  understanding  and  sympathy. 
Jesus  had  no  desire  to  reduce  men  to  a  dead 
level  of  uniformity.  No  one  knew  better  than 
he  the  heights  and  the  depths  of  human  char- 
acter, that  wide  range  of  diversity  of  gifts, 
which  adds  immeasurably  to  the  significance  of 
life.  He  taught  that  the  gifts  of  each  were  to 
be  used  for  the  redemption  and  development  of 
all.  Life  is  to  be  lived  not  on  a  basis  of  hos- 
tility and  suspicion  and  competition,  but  on  a 
basis  of  mutual  understanding,  of  cooperation, 
of  service  and  friendship.  This  is  the  great 
gospel  of  friendship  which  circled  the  world  with 
light,  that  men  are  to  be  friends,  that  the  an- 
cient barriers  of  hatred,  the  old  divisions  of 
class  and  sect,  the  old  distinction  of  Jew  and 
Gentile,  bond  and  free,  are  to  be  broken  down 
and  the  human  race,  the  whole  world  over,  is  to 
be  united  in  the  holy  bonds  of  friendship.  This 
is  the  essence  of  his  gospel  and  he  sealed  it  with 
his  blood.  He,  the  highest  of  the  race,  its  con- 
summate flower,  he  the  divine  master  of  men, 
died  that  he  might  demonstrate  his  everlasting 
friendship  for  the  lowest  and  meanest. 
**  The  friend  of  sinners,  yes  *tis  he 
With  garments  dyed  on  Calvary.** 


148  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

A  city  of  friends !  It  reveals  the  keenness 
and  the  daring  of  the  poet's  vision,  that  he 
should  apply  this  principle  of  Jesus  to  the  city. 
The  practical  man  will  say  at  once,  "  Oh,  no ! 
In  the  country,  in  the  village,  perhaps,  where 
life  moves  leisurely  and  calmly  like  the  slow 
river  between  the  meadow  banks,  friendship  on 
a  general  scale,  acquaintance,  at  least,  may  be 
possible.  But  not  in  that  maelstrom  of  life,  the 
city.  Not  in  the  city  with  its  myriads  of  peo- 
ple, stung  to  incessant  action  by  the  lash  of  ne- 
cessity; not  in  the  city  with  its  bitter  com- 
petition, where  the  moments  are  precious  and 
time  means  bread  for  hungry  mouths ;  not  in 
the  city  where  the  very  streets  cry  '  haste,'  and 
men  are  keyed  to  the  highest  tension  which  the 
straining  nerves  can  bear.  A  city  of  friends.'' 
That  is  impossible.  The  city  is  splendid  but 
it  is  cruel.  No,  it  is  a  beautiful  dream,  but  it 
cannot  be."  And  yet  I  dare  to  say,  in  the  name 
of  Him  who  died  for  the  city,  without  the  city 
walls,  that  it  must  be  and  shall  be.  A  City  of 
Friends !  It  is  based  upon  the  Master's  defini- 
tion of  life.  It  is  the  ultimate  definition.  You 
cannot  add  to  it  nor  subtract  from  it,  and  it  is 
universally  applicable.  You  cannot  apply  it 
in  the  country  and  not  in  the  city.  The  city 
is  life  at  its  highest  point  of  development,  life 
at  full  flood,  life  in  its  supreme  expression. 
The  city   then  is   the  final   test   of  civilization 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  149 

and  Christianity.  The  city  must  become  the 
City  of  Friends;  it  must  attain  to  this  ideal 
of  the  Master's  promise  and  the  poet's  dream, 
or  life  itself  is  a  failure. 

Let  us  define  what  we  mean  by  the  new  City 
of  Friends.  We  do  not  mean  that  every  indi- 
vidual, even  in  the  most  superficial  sense,  can 
know  every  other  individual  and  establish  rela- 
tions of  personal  intimacy.  That  would  be 
neither  possible  nor  desirable.  It  is  impossible 
to  reproduce  the  social  conditions  of  a  village  in 
a  great  city.  What  must  be  done  first  of  all 
is  to  change  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  the 
city  toward  the  city  itself,  from  indifference  and 
selfishness,  to  interest  and  friendliness.  We 
must  create  the  atmosphere  of  friendliness,  of 
conscious  participation  in  the  city's  life.  This 
is  needed  beyond  all  things  else  in  our  American 
cities  today.  Our  cities  have  no  self-conscious- 
ness, no  civic  pride.  The  average  citizen  re- 
gards his  city  simply  as  a  convenient  place  to 
eat  and  sleep  and  do  business.  He  has  con- 
sidered it  not  in  relation  to  his  fellowmen,  to  his 
neighbors,  but  solely  as  it  has  affected  his  own 
interests.  He  has  used  the  city  as  a  workman 
uses  a  tool  and  then  flings  it  down.  He  has  not 
even  interested  himself  enough  to  vote,  when 
the  city  has  summoned  him  to  the  most  sacred 
duty  of  citizenship.  He  has  too  often  calmly 
permitted  the  worst,   the   most   selfish  men   in 


150  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

the  city  to  govern  it,  to  exploit  its  resources, 
to  mismanage  its  schools,  to  monopolize  its  fran- 
chises, and  he  has  grumbled  only  when  these 
modern  bandits  have  held  him  up  and  forced 
him  to  pay  tribute.  He  would  even  rather  pay 
tribute  than  to  go  to  the  trouble  of  taking  any 
active  and  efficient  part  in  the  management  of 
the  community.  He  has  felt  no  sense  of  obli- 
gation and  responsibility.  The  conception  of 
a  city  as  an  entity,  a  personality,  a  city  of 
friends,  a  brotherhood,  fulfilling  a  great  des- 
tiny in  the  earth,  working  splendidly  toward 
the  realization  of  the  great  ends  of  civilization, 
fulfilling  the  commands  of  Jesus,  realizing  the 
purposes  of  God,  this  apparently  has  never  en- 
tered his  head. 

We  must  destroy,  root  and  branch,  this  ut- 
terly unsocial  and  unchristian  conception  of 
the  city.  It  is  a  positively  immoral  concep- 
tion. It  is  a  denial  of  a  divinely  imposed  re- 
sponsibility. We  must  cease  to  think  of  the 
city  in  terms  of  brick  and  mortar,  of  yards  of 
cloth  and  tons  of  steel.  We  must  think  of  it 
instead  in  terms  of  flesh  and  blood,  of  immortal 
souls.  Let  us  have  improved  machinery  by  all 
means  for  our  city  government,  but  we  shall  be 
bitterly  disappointed  if  we  expect  any  decisive 
results  from  changes  in  the  form  of  government 
alone.  The  human  factor  is  the  decisive  factor. 
You  must  have  men  who  are  vitally  interested 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  151 

in  the  city,  men  who  regard  life  as  a  divine 
thing,  who  listen  to  the  beating  of  the  city's 
mighty  heart,  who  are  sensitive  to  every  phase 
of  its  mysterious  being.  We  must  go  back  to 
mediaeval  days  for  examples  of  such  a  passion- 
ate love  and  devotion  to  the  city.  We  must 
go  back  to  the  days  when,  in  the  cities  of  France 
— '  Chartres,  Amiens,  Rouen  —  the  great  ca- 
thedrals were  built,  which  stand,  in  the  words  of 
an  old  writer,  "  like  royal  standards  of  vic- 
tory." Who  built  these  glorious  structures.'^ 
Not  the  church,  not  the  ecclesiastics,  but  the 
people.  Men  and  women  harnessed  themselves 
into  the  carts  which  drew  the  stones.  They 
worked  in  storm  and  sunshine  on  the  rising 
walls,  in  order  that  the  complete  structure 
might  fitly  witness  to  the  city's  pride  and  the 
city's  worth. 

The  modern  city  of  friends  must  have  the 
same  self-consciousness,  the  same  civic  pride, 
the  same  passion  for  expression  in  service,  but 
we  want  it  not  as  a  desire  for  beautiful  buildings 
alone,  but  for  the  development  in  the  city  of  a 
beautiful  and  symmetrical  and  holy  living.  We 
want  the  life  of  every  man  and  woman  built 
into  a  city  of  righteousness,  a  city  of  friends, 
invincible  and  splendid.  In  the  new  city  of 
friends,  all  false  distinctions  of  class  and  wealth 
must  disappear,  but  new  and  finer  distinctions 
will   arise.     There  will  be   no   aristocracy   of 


16a  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

wealth  and  pride  and  ostentation,  but  there  will 
be  a  new  aristocracy  of  worth,  of  service.  The 
men  who  will  be  most  highly  honored  will  be 
those  who  have  done  the  most  faithful  service. 
The  men  who  will  wear  the  badge  of  civic  honor 
will  be  those  who  meet  the  highest  test  of  friend- 
ship, which  is  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister.  But  amid  all  distinctions,  there  must 
run  the  spirit  of  consideration  and  thoughtful- 
ness  and  courtesy.  This  spirit  must  be  devel- 
oped between  the  buyer  of  goods  in  the  stores 
and  the  seller,  the  teacher  and  the  pupil,  the 
railroad  employee  and  the  traveling  public,  the 
business  man  and  his  subordinates,  the  native 
born  and  the  alien.  We  see  this  spirit  already 
in  the  movement  against  the  sweatshop,  the 
early  buying  of  Christmas  gifts,  the  broaden- 
ing of  the  spirit  of  Christian  sympathy  toward 
the  alien.  This  must  go  on  until  all  the  old 
hateful  conditions  are  overcome  by  the  forces 
of  Christian  friendship  and  love. 

There  are  some  definite  things  which  the  city 
of  friends  will  do  when  it  has  attained  self-con- 
sciousness, when  it  has  aroused  the  devotion  and 
pride  of  the  best  citizenship.  For  one  thing,  I 
believe  that  the  city  of  friends  will  make  an  ef- 
fectual protest  against  war.  The  city  has 
always  borne  the  heaviest  burdens  and  experi- 
enced the  keenest  sorrow  in  times  of  war.  Fam- 
ine and  pestilence  and  massacre  have  desolated 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  153 

its  streets  and  destroyed  its  people.  We  of 
the  great  republic  of  the  West  like  to  repeat 
in  our  superior  virtue  the  quartrain  of  the  poet, 

**  God  said,  *  I  am  tired  of  kings, 
I  suffer  them  no  more. 
Up  to  my  ear  the  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor.'  " 

But  let  me  tell  you  that  God  is  not  half  so 
tired  of  kings  as  He  is  of  war.  It  is  nineteen 
hundred  years  since  His  Son,  the  Prince  of 
Peace,  was  born,  and  still  the  Christian  nations 
stand  with  harness  on,  girded  for  battle,  and 
still  the  red  ensigns  of  defiance  fly  from  con- 
stantly augmenting  hostile  fleets,  and  still  the 
morning  brings  to  the  ear  of  God  the  cry  of 
the  poor,  upon  whom  falls  the  burden  of  all 
this  useless  armament.  The  time  will  come 
when  the  cities  will  say.  Not  one  penny  more 
shall  be  spent  for  war  or  for  the  preparation 
for  war  in  a  Christian  land.  We  need  it  all 
for  the  education  of  our  children,  for  the  ameli- 
oration of  conditions  of  poverty  and  sickness, 
for  the  advancement  of  science,  for  the  spread 
of  the  gospel  of  peace.  When  the  city  says 
that,  war  will  cease,  for  the  city  furnishes  the 
wealth  which  builds  the  fleets  and  maintains  the 
armies,  it  furnishes  the  men  whose  lives  are  sac- 
rificed in  battle,  and  it  furnishes  the  widows  and 
orphans  who  must  be  supported  at  the  public 


164  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

charge.  When  the  cities  say,  We  are  cities  of 
friends,  and,  more  than  that,  the  people  of  all 
the  cities  of  all  the  earth  are  our  friends  and 
brothers,  and  never  again  will  we  slay  our 
friends  and  our  brothers  in  battle,  then  the 
Kingdom  of  God  will  dawn  upon  an  earth  weary 
of  slaughter.  When  that  time  comes  there  will 
be  a  marvellous  expansion  of  all  the  activities 
of  life  in  cities.  Released  from  the  haunting 
fear  of  war,  enriched  by  the  gains  of  unbroken 
peace,  men  will  go  forward  to  new  and  un- 
dreamed of  triumphs  in  art  and  science. 

There  will  be  a  new  and  a  broader  theory  of 
education  in  the  City  of  Friends.  Necessarily 
under  the  present  conditions  we  must  educate 
hastily  and  en  masse.  There  is  an  imperative 
demand  that  the  child  shall  be  fitted  as  soon 
as  possible  to  earn  a  livelihood.  Thousands 
of  children  must  leave  the  school  with  only  a 
hurried  and  an  incomplete  preparation.  The 
new  conception  of  a  city  of  friends  will  entirely 
change  our  point  of  view.  The  city  will  not 
hesitate  to  provide  any  sum  of  money,  any 
teaching  force  necessary  to  carry  out  the 
broadest  possible  conception  of  education, 
which  is  the  complete  training  of  every  indi- 
vidual for  the  highest  service,  in  accordance 
with  personal  inclination  and  capacity.  The 
city  will  approach  every  child  born  within  its 
circumference  as  a  child  of  God,  and  it  will  try 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  165 

by  individual  attention  to  discover  what  God 
intended  that  child  to  be  and  to  do.  Then, 
regardless  of  time  and  expense,  it  will  give  that 
child  the  fullest  possible  training,  not  for  self- 
ish gratification,  not  simply  for  money  making, 
but  for  the  highest  service  to  society,  the  most 
efficient  performance  of  the  individual  task. 
This  may  be  a  dream,  but  it  is  based  upon  the 
dream  of  Jesus  and  the  dream  of  the  poet. 
The  conception  of  friendship  means  to  the  high- 
est degree  obligation.  If  the  city  has  any  ob- 
ligation to  the  child,  it  has  a  complete  obliga- 
tion. This  obligation  implies  an  understand- 
ing of  character  and  needs,  a  service  which  is 
not  fragmentary,  but  perfect  and  entire. 

The  child  must  also  be  taught  its  obligations 
to  the  city,  to  society.  Friendship  is  a  mu- 
tual obligation.  It  implies  giving  as  well  as 
receiving.  Friendship  is  not  a  charity  to  be 
bestowed  patronizingly  upon  the  weak.  The 
child  even  now,  in  our  schools  must  not  be  al- 
lowed to  suppose  that  he  is  being  educated  at 
the  public  expense  without  obligation  on  his 
part.  He  should  be  taught  with  the  strongest 
emphasis  that  he  has  received  freely  and  he 
must  give  freely.  He  is  the  city's  ward.  The 
city  is  training  him  not  because  he  so  richly 
deserves  the  favor,  but  because  the  city  needs 
him,  because  it  is  anxiously  looking  to  the  com- 
ing generations   for   a   larger  development   of 


156  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

its  life,  a  loftier  patriotism,  a  more  splendid 
and  sacrificial  service.  That,  it  seems  to  me, 
will  be  the  ideal  of  education  in  the  City  of 
Friends:  the  symmetrical  and  complete  devel- 
opment of  individual  talent;  the  object,  char- 
acter and  service. 

What  is  the  place  finally  of  the  church  in  the 
new  City  of  Friends.?  It  will  be  a  place  of 
commanding  influence  and  power.  I  know  that 
the  church  must  have  its  forms  and  its  creeds. 
But  the  time  has  fully  come  when  it  must  trans- 
late all  its  creeds  into  terms  of  service.  It 
must  not  stand  for  negative  virtues,  nor  for  in- 
tellectual assent  only,  even  to  the  most  pro- 
found truths.  It  must  demonstrate  in  the  life 
of  the  city  the  principles  of  the  great  gospel 
of  friendship.  It  has  a  tremendous  pent-up 
potentiality  of  power.  It  must  send  out  this 
power  in  life-giving  streams  of  mercy  and  help- 
fulness. If  it  preaches  friendliness  as  the  es- 
sence of  its  gospel,  it  must  be  friendly.  I  do 
not  know  when  the  great  evils  of  the  city,  its 
arrogance,  its  bitterness,  its  poverty,  its  mis- 
ery, its  unequal  conditions,  its  cruelty  to  the 
weak,  its  heartlessness  toward  the  heavy-laden, 
will  be  overcome,  but  I  know  that  they  will  be 
conquered.  The  church  has  no  business  to 
doubt  it  for  an  instant.  If  it  does,  it  doubts 
Jesus  and  the  cross  on  which  he  died  for  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  157 

redemption  of  the  world.  The  church  in  the 
city  can  never  rest  until  it  has  exhausted  every 
possible  effort  to  put  into  actual  practice  the 
great  gospel  of  friendship.  The  church  can 
never  rest  until  it  has  made  the  effort  with 
intelligence  and  fervid  zeal  to  lift  every  down- 
trodden and  broken-hearted  and  defeated  life 
up  to  the  highest  possible  level  of  the  freedom 
of  the  sons  of  God. 

There  are  great  reservoirs  of  sympathy  and 
friendliness  in  the  churches  of  every  city  which 
are  impeded  by  conventions,  by  sheer  dumbness 
and  inability  to  find  expression.  I  believe  that 
the  time  will  come  when  this  great  unused  de- 
posit of  friendliness  will  be  made  available, 
when  the  sympathy  of  the  church  will  make  it- 
self definitely  felt.  I  think  that  the  time  will 
come  when,  without  intrusion,  every  stranger 
who  comes  into  a  city,  whatever  his  rank  or  so- 
cial standing,  will  receive  a  Christian  welcome 
in  the  name  of  the  united  church  of  Jesus 
Christ.  I  believe  that  the  time  will  come  when 
the  young  man  and  the  young  woman  coming 
to  a  city  friendless  and  unknown  will  be  greeted 
by  the  outstretched  arms  of  the  white  figure 
of  the  Christ,  rather  than  by  the  luring  smile 
of  the  devil  of  temptation  and  the  flaring  en- 
ticement of  the  street ;  when  all  the  resources 
of  Christian  righteousness   and  Christian  love 


168  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

shall  be  exerted  to  protect  and  to  welcome 
every  lonely  and  homesick  child  of  God  who 
enters  the  precincts  of  the  city. 

The  task  which  I  have  outlined  is  not  as  dif- 
ficult as  it  may  seem.  Humanity  has  not  been 
living  through  these  Christian  centuries  quite 
for  nothing.  All  the  forces  necessary  for  the 
city's  redemption  are  in  being.  We  need  only 
to  quicken  and  stimulate  and  enlarge  the  forces 
already  at  work.  It  is  a  question  of  ef- 
ficiency, of  awaking  the  souls  of  men  to  the 
divine  opportunity.  The  only  reason  why  the 
city  of  today  is  not  the  city  of  friends  is  be- 
cause the  marching  columns  of  humanity  have 
halted  upon  the  way.  The  army  has  en- 
camped in  the  valley  instead  of  on  the  heights. 
We  have  seen  the  goal,  but  we  have  not  had  the 
courage  and  the  faith  to  reach  it.  But  others 
will  take  up  the  march,  and  the  victory  is  sure. 
The  City  of  Friends  is  the  shining  City  of  God 
which  is  set  upon  a  hill  and  cannot  be  hid. 
When  men  lift  up  their  eyes  to  heaven  to  pray, 
they  must  see  it,  and  seeing  they  will  long  for 
it,  and  longing  for  it,  they  will  one  day 
possess  it. 


XIII 
THE  CITY  AND  THE  NATION 

For  Zion's  sake  will  I  not  hold  my  peace,  and  for 
Jerusalem's  sake  I  will  not  rest,  until  the  righteousness 
thereof  go  forth  a*  brightness,  and  the  salvation  there- 
of as  a  lam,p  that  hurneth.  And  the  Oentiles  shall  see 
thy  brightness,  and  ail  kings  thy  glory:  and  thou  shait 
be  called  by  a  new  name,  which  the  mouth  of  the  Lord 
shall  name. —  Isaiah  62:1-2, 

History  tells  us  that  it  is  now  nearly  three 
centuries  since  the  Pilgrim  fathers  crossed  the 
stormy  Atlantic  and  took  possession  of  a  new 
land.  The  passage  of  time  is  no  indication 
of  the  marvellous  changes  which  have  been 
wrought  on  this  continent,  since  the  landing  at 
Plymouth.  I  do  not  refer  simply  to  the  prog- 
ress in  material  science  which  has  altered  the 
face  of  the  world,  but  to  revolutionary  changes 
in  conditions  of  life.  The  American  colonies 
were  not,  even  after  the  revolution,  a  nation. 
The  problems  which  confronted  society  were 
not  even  sectional.  They  were  provincial, 
parochial,  individualistic.  The  most  signifi- 
cant thing  which  has  been  accomplished  during 

these  centuries  is  the  acquisition  of  a  national 
159 


160  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

consciousness.  It  is  a  sacred  and  an  unspeak- 
ably precious  possession.  A  million  of  men 
gave  their  blood  that  it  might  be  cemented  by 
sacrifice.  Under  the  providence  of  God  the  mir- 
acle has  been   accomplished. 

The  most  polyglot  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  has  become  a  free  nation  with  a  national 
consciousness  keener  and  stronger  than  the 
homogeneous  nations  of  Europe  can  boast. 
For  good  or  for  ill,  with  an  influence  upon  the 
world  daily  growing  stronger  and  destined  to  be 
decisive,  we  are  a  nation.  Some  sparks  of  sec- 
tionalism, some  local  jealousies,  may  smoulder 
still,  but  we  know  that  North  and  South,  East 
and  West,  we  are  all  one,  and  we  must  stand  or 
fall  together. 

We  cannot  have  a  national  consciousness, 
we  cannot  be  a  homogeneous  people  without 
developing  at  the  same  time  a  national  charac- 
ter. Every  observer  knows  that  the  sectional 
characteristics  which  once  differentiated  the 
New  Englander,  the  Southerner,  the  Westerner, 
are  disappearing.  There  is  less  difference  to- 
day in  dialect,  in  habits  of  mind,  between  the 
people  living  in  the  extreme  east  and  west  of 
our  great  domain,  than  exists  in  England  be- 
tween the  farmer  of  Cumberland  and  the  fisher- 
man of  Cornwall.  The  welding  together  of  the 
people,  this  nationalizing  temper,  must  inevit- 
ably produce  a  national  character. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  161 

The  key  to  our  national  consciousness  and 
to  our  rapidly  developing  national  character 
is  the  city.  Civic  consciousness  and  civic  char- 
acter will  dominate  the  nation.  The  whole 
nation  is  fast  becoming  urban.  It  is  not  sim- 
ply a  matter  of  the  marvellous  increase  of  ur- 
ban population,  the  indraft  of  the  city,  which 
draws  the  population  from  the  country  to  its 
vortex.  The  tide,  not  of  numbers  merely,  but 
of  commanding  and  preponderating  influence, 
is  setting  back  strongly  from  the  country  to 
the  city. 

The  distinctively  rural  type  is  destined  prac- 
tically to  disappear.  The  next  generation  of 
farmers  will  be  largely  city  bred,  university 
trained  men,  who  will  work  the  land  scientific- 
ally and  whose  sympathies  and  ideals  will  be 
urban  rather  than  rural.  Rapid  transporta- 
tion by  trolley  and  automobile  is  constantly 
bringing  city  and  country  together. 

Mighty  economic  forces  are  centralizing  the 
life  of  the  people,  fusing  and  blending  them 
together.  The  dominant,  controlling  note  is 
that  of  the  city.  Truly,  in  the  phrase  of  Je- 
sus, the  American  city  is  a  city  "  which  is  set 
upon  a  hill  which  cannot  be  hid."  Its  influence 
is  rapidly  coming  to  be  decisive  in  the  political, 
the  economic,  the  social  life  of  the  nation. 
What  the  city  is  today,  the  nation  will  be  to- 
morrow.    The  great  battle  of  democracy  will 


162  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

be  fought  in  this  arena.  The  destiny  of  Amer- 
ica will  be  decided  in  the  city  streets,  perhaps 
even  the  destiny  of  the  world  will  depend  upon 
the  civic  commonwealths  of  America,  more  po- 
tent even,  in  their  influence  upon  modem  life, 
than  the  ancient  civic  republics  of  Italy  upon 
mediaeval  life  and  character. 

There  are  two  broad  lines  along  which  civic 
consciousness  and  civic  character  should,  I  be- 
lieve, develop.  In  each  of  these  movements  the 
reflex  influence  upon  the  nation  must  be  pro- 
found and  perhaps  decisive.  These  lines  of  de- 
velopment may  at  first  seem  to  be  opposite  and 
mutually  exclusive,  but  I  think  that  they  will 
both  be  found  to  be  fundamental  and  absolutely 
essential  to  our  civic  welfare  and  progress.  I 
shall  call  them  the  development  of  individual 
responsibility  and  the  suppression  of  exclusive 
individual  privilege. 

The  safety  of  the  city,  the  safety  of  the  re- 
public depends  upon  the  sense  of  responsibility 
which  is  felt  by  all  good  citizens,  in  govern- 
ment. I  know  that  it  sounds  like  Pharisaism 
to  talk  about  the  "  best  people  "  in  the  com- 
munity, and  I  use  the  term  with  hesitation.  I 
do  not  draw  any  religious  or  social  line.  But 
everybody  knows  that  there  is  a  line  between 
the  good  and  the  evil,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be,  drawn  in  government  as 
well  as  in  ethics.     There  is  a  great  evil  class  in 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  163 

every  community.  Those  who  compose  it  are 
not  the  best  people  in  any  sense  of  the  word. 
There  is  another  class  of  honest,  upright  peo- 
ple with  consciences  and  ideals  who  are  trying 
to  live  respectably  and  honestly,  who  have  only 
the  welfare  of  the  community  at  heart.  They 
are  the  "  best  people,"  and  everybody  knows 
it.  It  is  not  undemocratic  to  make  such  a  dis- 
tinction. These  people  have  not,  as  a  class, 
concerned  themselves  greatly  in  the  self-govern- 
ment of  our  cities.  They  have  been  too  busy 
about  their  own  affairs,  too  diligently  con- 
cerned in  the  building  up  of  homes  and  fortunes, 
Lv  care  very  much  about  the  government  of 
the  city,  so  long  as  it  did  not  immediately 
touch  them.  In  other  words,  they  have  forgot- 
ten and  neglected  the  fundamental  responsibil- 
ities of  democracy.  The  result  has  been  the 
corruption  of  our  American  cities.  The  gov- 
ernment of  these  cities  has  been  taken  over  by 
men  with  low  standards  of  morality,  without 
conscience,  without  patriotism,  who  have  ex- 
ploited the  city  for  their  own  gain.  We  have 
developed  in  America  a  type  of  boss,  of  ward 
politician,  venial,  corrupt,  astute,  cunning,  im- 
moral, and  dangerous  as  a  snake  in  the  grass. 
With  fatuous  unconcern,  with  self-satisfied  in- 
difference we  have  turned  over  the  government 
of  many  of  our  cities  to  this  creature. 

An    English    writer    long    conversant    with 


164  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

American  affairs  declares :  "  The  problem  of 
New  York,  in  short  the  problem  which  confronts 
now  more  than  ever  the  whole  American  peo- 
ple, is  how  to  restore,  how  to  reassume,  how  to 
make  workable  and  effective,  self-government." 
There  is  no  possible  way  in  which  this  can  be 
done  except  by  personal  initiative,  by  the  sac- 
rifice of  personal  inclination,  and  the  giving  of 
personal  attention  to  the  problem.  The  great 
sin  of  America  today  is  indifference.  It  runs 
through  all  our  communal  life;  indifference  to 
the  church,  indifference  to  government,  indif- 
ference to  the  school,  indifference  to  the  home. 
It  is  a  part  of  that  selfishness  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  our  modern  life.  We  do  what  pleases 
us,  what  fills  our  purse,  what  gives  us  individual 
enjoyment,  what  employs  our  talents  in  the 
material  world,  with  extraordinary  skill  and 
efficiency. 

We  have  failed  to  develop  a  sense  of  individ- 
ual personal  concern  and  responsibility  for  any 
task  which  does  not  contribute  immediately 
to  our  pleasure  or  to  our  advantage.  We 
have  come  to  believe  that  we  can  buy  any- 
thing, if  we  pay  the  price.  We  have  yet  to 
learn  that  there  are  some  things  which  are  not, 
for  sale  in  any  market  place.  Honor,  justice, 
righteousness,  the  service  which  runs  into  self- 
sacrifice,  these  things  cannot  be  bought  and 
paid  for.     We  have  yet  to  learn  that  self-gov- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  165 

emment  means  the  giving  of  self,  the  sacrifice 
of  self.  Government  is  not  automatic  and  self- 
perpetuating.  It  is  concerned  not  with  laws 
and  commodities  simply,  but  with  life.  It  is 
the  expression  of  life.  It  takes  on  inevitably 
the  color  of  life,  the  character  of  life.  To  se- 
cure good  government  requires  the  expenditure 
of  time  and  thought  and  energy.  It  requires 
organization.  You  cannot  go  away  and  leave 
it  and  attend  to  your  own  concerns  and  your 
own  pleasures  exclusively  and  find  it  when  you 
come  back.  The  evil  forces  of  the  city  are 
always  lurking  in  the  background  ready  to  seize 
it  when  you  turn  away,  ready  to  steal  it,  or 
even  to  assault  you  and  take  it  by  force.  The 
price  of  civic  liberty  is  always  eternal  vigilance, 
constant  and  unremitting  labor.  If  the  fol*ces 
of  righteousness  and  law  and  order  are  unwill- 
ing to  expend  the  energy  necessary,  then  the 
city  will  pass  inevitably  to  the  control  of  those 
who  are  always  ready  to  toil  and  to  sacrifice  to 
obtain  the  prize. 

There  is  no  way  in  which  the  development  of 
individual  initiative  can  come  about  except 
through  what  amounts  to  a  revival  of  the  sense 
of  personal  responsibility.  A  revival,  I  mean, 
in  the  genuine  religious  sense.  We  must  re- 
pent of  our  sins  of  indiff^erence.  Our  con- 
sciences must  be  awakened.  We  must  learn  to 
perform  our  civic   duties  because  we  are  im- 


166  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

pelled  from  within  by  a  high  sense  of  honor 
and  patriotism.  No  machinery  which  was  ever 
invented  can  do  it  for  us.  All  devices  of  direct 
primaries  and  the  referendum  are  absolutely 
in  vain,  unless  the  sense  of  duty  is  awake  in  a 
man's  soul.  The  unit  of  political  freedom  is 
not  the  ballot  box,  but  the  man  whose  duty  it 
is  to  deposit  his  ballot,  and  all  reforms  must 
begin  with  him.  You  must  go  down  to  the  bed- 
rock of  personality,  and  upon  that  foundation 
the  city  and  the  nation  will  stand  or  fall. 

The  first  need  of  the  city  is  the  development 
of  individual  responsibility.  The  second  need 
is  the  suppression  of  individuality  when  it  finds 
expression  in  the  demand  for  exclusive  rights. 
Our  civilization  has  become  immensely  compli- 
cated, and  as  life  grows  complicated  it  becomes 
increasingly  difficult  to  govern.  The  ancient 
civilizations  fell  of  their  own  weight.  Social 
justice  for  all  classes  became  impossible,  and 
decay  inevitably  followed.  It  is  no  simple  or 
easy  task  which  the  city  has  set  before  it  in  our 
day.  The  great  problem  is  to  secure  equal 
rights  for  all  under  the  administration  of  law 
and  order  and  a  firm  government.  The  most 
serious  matter  which  concerns  the  city  is  the 
position  of  industry,  the  fair  adjustment  of  the 
relations  between  the  workman  and  his  em- 
ployer. I  do  not  know,  and  I  do  not  care  to 
predict,  what  the  outcome  of  the  struggle  be- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  167 

tween  industry  and  capital  will  be.  One  thing 
I  do  know,  the  struggle  on  both  sides  must  be 
conducted  fairly  and  honorably  and  in  accor- 
dance with  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth.  If 
the  employer,  by  superior  wealth  and  cunning 
has  secured  privileges  which  do  not  belong  to 
him;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  laborer  is  de- 
nied rights  and  privileges  which  should  in  jus- 
tice belong  to  him,  the  struggle  to  divest  the 
one  of  his  unjust  privileges  and  to  secure  for 
the  other  his  inalienable  rights  must  be  con- 
ducted in  accordance  with  those  methods  of  pro- 
cedure which  have  always  obtained  among  free 
people.  The  people,  the  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple must  be  persuaded.  They  must  decree  by 
due  process  of  legislation  what  is  just  and 
equitable  for  all  parties  concerned.  Anything 
else  is  anarchy.  We  may  have  anarchy  if  we 
choose.  We  may  have  revolution.  We  may 
barricade  our  streets  and  fight  it  out  until  the 
stronger  beats  the  weaker  into  submission  and 
enforces  his  will,  establishes  his  law,  by  virtue 
of  his  superior  strength.  We  may  do  that. 
But  we  cannot  have  anarchy  and  government 
at  the  same  time.  That  is  the  ominous  aspect 
of  the  situation  in  our  cities.  When  a  body  of 
men  raise  the  standard,  "  No  God,  No  Master," 
in  the  streets  of  the  city,  they  proclaim  an- 
archy. We  in  America  have  always  believed  in 
God  and  we  believe  also  in  being  subject  to  the 


168  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

laws  which  we  ourselves  have  made.  There  is 
no  other  way  to  treat  a  demonstration  of  this 
kind  except  by  force.  You  cannot  parley 
with  a  madman.  We  sympathize  with  the 
wrongs  of  all  people.  It  may  be  that  grave  in- 
justice is  done,  but  laborer  and  capitalist  must 
be  treated  exactly  alike  by  the  Commonwealth. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  violence  in  our  free 
American  cities.  Reform  is  marching  with  ex- 
traordinary rapidity.  It  is  hard  sometimes  to 
be  patient,  but  if  workingman  and  capitalist 
will  be  patient,  all  these  matters  will  be  ad- 
justed, not  with  perfect  equity  perhaps,  but 
with  as  near  an  approach  to  justice  as  we  ever 
come  in  this  world.  The  city  is  sensitive  to  so- 
cial wrong.  In  every  city  there  are  groups  of 
men  and  women  who  are  in  deadly  earnest  about 
these  things.  The  conscience  of  the  Church  is 
awake.  The  Church  is  today  definitely  com- 
mitted to  all  legitimate  social  reforms.  It  is 
studying  the  situation  in  every  city  with  ear- 
nest and  prayerful  attention.  The  American 
city  along  this  line  is  in  advance  of  the  age. 
Its  spirit  is  like  that  of  the  fine  lines  of  Eurip- 
ides: 

"  Thou  hast  heard  men  scorn  thy  city,  call  her  void 
Of  counsel,  mad;  thou  hast  seen  the  fire  of  morn 
Flash  from  her  eyes  in  answer  to  their  scorn. 
Come  toil  on  toil,  'tis  this  that  makes  her  grand. 
Peril  on  peril!     Common  states  that  stand 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  169 

In  caution,  twilight  cities,  dimly  wise  — 
Ye  know  them,  for  no  light  is  in  their  eyes. 
Go  forth,  my  son,  and  help !  ** 

The  attitude  of  the  best  men  and  women  is 
one  of  helpfulness  along  these  lines.  The  dan- 
ger is  even  that  social  legislation  shall  move 
faster  than  we  can  adapt  ourselves  to  the 
change.  But  we  must  all,  no  matter  how  great 
our  eagerness  for  reform,  set  our  faces  like  flint 
against  the  spirit  of  anarchy  and  violence.  It 
is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  trades  unions 
that  they  have,  as  a  rule,  taken  their  splendid 
stand  against  violence.  Nothing  is  to  be 
gained  by  murder  and  rapine  in  the  streets  of 
our  cities.  The  wanton  destruction  of  prop- 
erty will  never  move  men  to  acts  of  justice. 
The  employment  of  these  methods  simply  delays 
the  steady  march  of  reform. 

The  lesson  which  we  have  to  learn  in  our 
American  cities  is  this:  The  city  is  not  for 
one,  but  for  all.  Responsibility  and  coopera- 
tion are  the  two  great  principles  which  must  go 
hand  in  hand.  We  must  bring  out  the  very 
best  service  which  the  individual  has  to  give 
and  then  we  must  join  service  to  service,  for 
the  uplifting  of  the  whole  mass,  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  law  and  order. 

We  must  strive  to  realize  in  our  American 
cities  the  great  ideal  of  the  prophet  for  Jeru- 


170  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

salem,  a  social  service  so  high  and  so  noble  that 
it  should  shine  like  a  lamp  in  the  midst  of  the 
dark  world  until  all  nations  should  be  illumi- 
nated by  its  brightness.  America  is  today  the 
hope  of  the  world.  We  are  fighting  in  our  cit- 
ies the  battles  of  humanity.  We  must  not  hold 
our  peace,  we  must  not  rest,  until  righteousness 
is  established  in  our  cities,  until  it  goes  forth 
as  brightness  to  all  the  earth. 


XIV 

WOMAN  AND  THE  ULTIMATE 
DEMOCRACY 

There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond 
nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female;  for  ye  are 
all  one  in  Christ  Jesus. —  Galatians  3 :  28. 

The  apostle  Paul  has  been  charged  with  a 
great  deal  of  bigotry  and  intolerance  quite  for- 
eign to  his  nature.  The  truth  is,  he  was  con- 
servative in  details  and  grandly  broad  in  the 
great  essentials.  He  had  no  quarrel  with 
properly  constituted  authority.  He  believed 
in  giving  "  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due,  tribute 
to  whom  tribute."  He  was  no  brawler,  no 
breaker  of  images  for  the  sake  of  creating  noise 
and  confusion.  He  believed  in  the  conventions 
and  the  decencies  of  orderly  society.  He  was 
a  gentleman,  not  a  professional  agitator.  He 
did  not  wish  to  expose  the  women  of  the  church 
of  his  time  to  criticisms  of  immodesty,  of  un- 
womanly conduct.  Therefore,  he  commanded 
that  they  observe  the  customs  and  conventions 
of  the  day.     In  setting  forth  these  details  he 

was  not  legislating  for  all  women,  for  all  time, 
171 


172  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

and  nothing,  probably,  would  surprise  him 
more  than  to  find  that  anyone  could  suppose 
that  such  was  his  intention.  In  non-essentials 
he  counseled  modesty,  dignity,  courtesy,  for- 
bearance, self-respect,  obedience.  But  beyond 
this  region  of  restraint,  he  emerges,  to  lay  down, 
with  breadth  of  vision,  with  splendor  of  utter- 
ance, with  sublime  audacity,  the  principles  of 
the  new  Christian  order,  the  basis  for  the  ulti- 
mate democracy. 

We  must  judge  him,  then,  not  alone  by  his 
prohibitions,  but  by  the  utterance  of  the  text, 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is 
neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor 
female ;  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  It 
cannot  be  said  that  this  is  a  spiritual  relation- 
ship of  unity  and  privilege  only,  because  the 
kingdom  of  God,  in  the  mind  of  Jesus,  and  the 
mind  of  Paul,  is  inclusive.  The  distinction 
which  is  often  drawn  between  things  secular  and 
things  holy  is  an  artificial  distinction.  Man  is 
whole  and  life  is  whole,  and  you  cannot  sepa- 
rate thought  and  conduct.  You  cannot  say, 
prayer  is  holy  and  labor  is  profane.  Unless  we 
can  succeed  in  making  all  functions  holy,  vot- 
ing as  well  as  praying,  then  we  shall  have  at 
best,  only  a  divided  kingdom,  and  an  incomplete 
victory  of  Christ  over  the  world. 

"  There  is  neither  male  nor  female."  That 
is  to  say,  in  the  reaching  out  for  privilege,  for 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  173 

development,  for  the  realization  of  the  ideal  in 
humanity,  there  can  be  no  differentiation  of 
class,  or  race,  or  sex.  In  the  great  field  of  hu- 
man progress  these  distinctions  do  not  apply. 
There  is  one  goal  of  development,  and  in  the 
struggle  toward  the  goal  the  soul  alone  is  con- 
cerned; there  is  no  handicap  placed  upon 
woman.  She  has  exactly  the  same  divine  right 
as  man.  The  privilege  of  the  ballot  is  only  a 
phase,  an  incident,  in  this  struggle.  It  is,  how- 
ever, a  valuable  and  an  important  privilege  and 
there  is,  in  my  opinion,  absolutely  no  reason 
why  it  should  be  an  exclusively  male  privilege. 
What  is  the  ballot?  Simply,  a  more  or  less  ef- 
ficient means  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  self- 
governing  units  in  a  democracy.  It  is  the  voice 
of  the  people ;  expressing  the  wish  of  the  people 
as  to  the  conduct  of  their  own  affairs,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  community,  of  the  state,  of  the  na- 
tion. There  is  nothing  mysterious  or  supernat- 
ural about  it.  There  is  absolutely  no  reason, 
physiological,  psychological,  moral,  social,  why 
it  should  be  exclusively  a  function  or  privilege  of 
the  male.  The  constitution  defines  as  citizens 
"  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United 
States  and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof." 
Is  any  one  really  prepared  to  deny  in  this  en- 
lightened age  that  a  woman  is  a  person?  If 
she  is  a  person,  then  she  is  a  citizen,  and  if  a 
citizen,  clearly  entitled  to  have  a  voice  in  the 


174  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

community  in  which  she  is  taxed,  in  which  she 
engages  in  the  pursuits  of  the  social  order. 
A  very  effective  cartoon  recently  appeared. 
It  shows,  in  the  background,  four  great  beasts 
of  men,  evidently  ignorant,  degraded,  utterly 
incapable  of  intelligent  initiative,  or  rational 
judgment  upon  any  public  question.  In  the 
foreground  stands  a  woman  with  every  mark  of 
intelligence  and  refinement,  the  choice  product 
of  generations  of  clean  living,  and  high  think- 
ing and  noble  ideals.  Beneath  ran  the  legend, 
"  Shall  these  vote  and  not  the  woman?  "  The 
logic  is  unanswerable.  The  mere  fact  of  mas- 
culinity does  not  carry  with  it  the  power  to 
participate  intelligently  and  efficiently  in  pub- 
lic affairs.  You  would  not  choose  for  an  im- 
portant private  business  position  a  drunken 
loafer  instead  of  a  trained  and  efficient  woman. 
Why,  then,  should  there  be  a  distinction  in 
public  affairs,  in  civic  business .?  Why  should 
the  one  be  given  full  rights  of  natural  sov- 
ereignty and  not  the  other?  If  any  distinction 
is  to  be  made,  it  should  be  made,  not  along  the 
wholly  illogical  and  indefensible  line  of  sex,  but 
upon  the  basis  of  fitness,  intelligence,  ability. 
The  affairs  of  our  cities  are  not  so  abstruse 
and  complicated  that  they  cannot  be  readily  un- 
derstood by  women.  Government  has  come  to 
be  a  business  problem.  Legislation  is  mainly 
along  the  line  of  social  and  industrial  relation- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  175 

ships.  These  are  problems  which  women  have 
already  studied,  with  which  they  have  already 
grappled.  There  is  no  peculiarity  in  sex  or- 
ganization which  provides  special  intelligence 
for  the  male  along  these  lines.  In  regard  to 
the  moral  aspect  of  public  affairs,  women  are 
more  sensitively  organized  and  better  trained 
than  men.  Nearly  all  our  political  problems,  I 
might  almost  say  all  such  problems,  are  at 
bottom  moral  questions.  Here  lies  the  fallacy 
of  the  position  of  those  who  say  that  this  mat- 
ter has  nothing  to  do  with  morals.  Some  of 
the  greatest  moral  questions  of  the  centuries 
are  coming  before  our  democracy  for  adjust- 
ment during  the  next  generation,  and  I  would 
trust  the  settlement  of  these  questions  with 
women  sooner  than  with  men.  The  saloon  in- 
terests have  no  illusions  upon  this  matter. 
They  see  the  hand-writing  on  the  wall,  and  they 
know  that  the  vote  of  women  spells  doom  for 
an  institution  more  accursed  than  slavery,  but 
which,  please  God,  is  to  be  destroyed  by  the 
prayers  and  the  votes  of  women  before  many 
years  have  run  their  course.  The  cause  of 
woman's  suffrage  is  most  fortunate  in  its  chief- 
est  foes.  To  count  as  its  most  determined  and 
deadly  enemy  the  saloon,  is  a  distinction  which 
amounts  to  a  coronation. 

I  believe,  then,  that  there  is  no  reason  why 
women  should  not  be  given  the  vote.     I  think 


176  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

that  the  arguments  in  favor  of  full  citizenship 
will  shortly  become  irresistible.  If  the  vote 
were  the  only  problem  connected  with  sex,  the 
situation  would  be  comparatively  clear  and  easy 
of  solution.  I  want  to  turn  now  to  certain 
other  aspects  which  are  less  clear,  but  no  less 
important,  which  have  the  most  serious  moral 
bearing.  First  of  all,  if  the  franchise  is  to  be  a 
blessing  and  not  a  curse  to  women  in  this  coun- 
try, they  must  repudiate,  root  and  branch, 
the  spirit  of  militancy.  The  militant  movement 
in  England  is  one  of  the  most  lamentable,  one 
of  the  most  serious  and  menacing  phases  of 
modem  civilization.  That  night-mare  horror 
of  lawlessness,  of  arson,  of  blind,  hysterical 
fury,  not  only  discredits  the  cause  of  the  full 
enfranchisement  of  women,  but  it  threatens  civ- 
ilization itself.  It  is  of  no  use  to  say  that  this 
is  war,  and  justifiable  war,  for  a  great  cause. 
The  acts  of  which  women  have  been  guilty  in 
England  would  not  be  tolerated  for  a  moment 
in  modern  warfare.  Only  savages  wantonly 
destroy  the  property  of  non-combatants.  No 
modern  army,  even  under  the  greatest  of  provo- 
cation would  burn  churches  and  private  houses 
and  destroy  priceless  works  of  art.  This  is 
not  war.  It  is  hysteria,  mania,  animalism. 
Still  more  serious  than  the  wanton  destruction 
of  property  is  the  logic  of  the  situation,  the 
moral   chaos   into  which  it  plunges   the  social 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  177 

order.  The  cause,  say  the  militants,  is  good, 
therefore  any  means  to  bring  success  are  justi- 
fied. Suppose  the  prohibitionists  and  the  anti- 
vivisectionists  and  the  socialists  and  the  promo- 
ters of  a  hundred  good  causes  should  say  the 
same  thing,  should  indulge  in  unrestrained  li- 
cense and  destruction,  until  their  demands 
should  be  granted.  We  should  speedily  have 
anarchy  and  the  end  of  organized  government. 
With  the  end  of  government,  the  franchise 
would  cease  to  have  any  meaning  or  value. 
The  great  reforms  for  which  women  seek  are 
based  upon  reason,  upon  righteousness,  upon 
justice.  They  will  come  through  toil  and  pa- 
tience and  sacrifice,  not  through  the  destructive 
temper  of  the  screaming,  undisciplined  child. 

There  are  more  serious  aspects  of  this  sub- 
ject, still.  The  entirely  reasonable  demand  of 
women  for  a  share  in  the  government  of  democ- 
racy has  led  certain  radicals  into  the  extreme 
positions  of  a  distinctive  "  feminist  "  movement, 
as  if  this  were  the  inevitable  and  necessary 
outcome  of  the  struggle  for  fundamental  rights. 
These  extremists  do  not  hold  that  no  differen- 
tiation of  sex  can  affect  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  women ;  they  hold  that  there  is  no  dif- 
ferentiation, and  that  all  distinctive  occupation 
is  a  menace  to  women.  They  claim  that  the 
home  is  a  woman's  worst  enemy,  that  the 
"  mothering "  of  dolls  by  little  girls  is  a  de- 


178  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

grading  and  demoralizing  pastime,  which 
should  in  no  case  be  permitted.  One  writer 
says  that  "  the  work  of  the  home  is  essentially 
humiliating."  "  Labor  in  the  home  steals  from 
woman  her  individuality,  her  opportunities  for 
self-expression  and  self-development;  it  makes 
her  stupid,  limited,  harsh,  or  sentimental;  it 
deprives  her  of  her  beauty  and  her  grace,  di- 
vorces her  from  her  true  social  function  and 
generally  unfits  her  to  become  the  equal  com- 
panion whom  man  could  respect."  Such  con- 
tentions as  these  constitute  a  serious  and  a  dan- 
gerous menace  to  society.  They  run  counter 
to  all  the  spirit  of  progress  and  achievement 
of  civilization.  Improvement  comes,  not  by  de- 
stroying but  by  improving  the  type,  not  by 
robbing  a  flower  of  its  essential  characteristics, 
not  by  making  it  less  but  more  of  a  flower:  by 
increasing  its  fragrance  and  its  color  and  the 
beauty  of  its  contour.  The  woman  is  not  im- 
proved by  making  her  less,  but  more  a  woman, 
by  taking  those  qualities  which  are  lovely  and 
desirable,  and  increasing  their  significance  and 
power.  As  the  woman  gains  in  privilege,  she 
should  increase  in  womanliness.  There  is  no 
reason  why  she  should  be  unsexed  as  she  ad- 
vances in  knowledge  and  experience. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  for  attacking  the 
home  because  certain  political  rights  should  be, 
in  justice,  accorded  to  women.     Again,  you  are 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  179 

not  obliged  to  destroy  a  rose  in  order  to  im- 
prove it.  The  home  is  a  divine  institution. 
The  world  would  be  desolate,  life  would  be 
cheap  and  poor  and  futile  without  it.  Drudgery 
is  connected  with  it,  sacrifice  is  necessary  for  it. 
But  drudgery  and  sacrifice  are  necessary  ad- 
juncts of  any  type  of  successful  life.  Women 
do  not  escape  them,  when  they  go  into  business 
and  the  professions.  Drudgery  and  sacrifice 
are  not  necessarily  sterile  and  bitter.  Beauty 
and  radiance  have  always  streamed  from  the 
crosses  of  service  and  nowhere  more  gloriously 
than  from  the  cross-bearing  of  the  home.  In- 
stead of  mocking  the  home  and  demanding  its 
abolition,  progressive  and  educated  women 
should  be  defending  and  exalting  it.  They 
should  make  of  home-keeping  the  highest  of  all 
professions,  the  most  exalted  of  all  callings. 
The  resources  of  science  should  be  called  in, 
trained  intelligence  should  be  enlisted  to  solve 
its  problems.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  domestic 
science  departments  of  our  high  schools  and 
colleges  should  be  enlarged  in  scope  and  pur- 
pose. They  should  aim  not  only  to  teach  the 
technical  and  theoretical  sides  of  domestic  econ- 
ony,  they  should  exalt  home-making  as  a  pro- 
fession, they  should  set  forth  the  ideals  and  the 
opportunity  and  the  possibilities  of  the  home. 
They  should  not  pretend  that  home-making  is 
not  difficult,  but  they  should  teach  it  as  an  art. 


180  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

the  most  exacting  and  comprehensive  of  arts, 
but  the  noblest  also  and  the  most  rewarding. 
They  should  teach  that  the  woman  who  mas- 
ters this  art  is  no  less  worthy  of  consideration 
and  honor  than  the  woman  who  succeeds  in 
medicine  or  law,  or  who  becomes  pre-eminent  in 
business  or  in  science.  We  may  be  sure  of  one 
thing.  The  home  will  survive  all  attacks  which 
are  made  upon  it.  It  is  too  precious  and  valu- 
able to  be  lost.  Women  should  count  it  a 
privilege  and  a  glory,  that  it  must  remain  al- 
ways her  distinctive  field.  From  it  she  may  go, 
to  exercise  all  the  rights  of  citizenship,  but  to 
it  she  must  return  again  as  to  a  divine  calling. 
Again,  the  feminists  of  the  radical  type  make 
a  grave  mistake  in  emphasizing  and  fostering 
sex  antagonism.  There  are  antagonisms  and 
clashings  enough  in  the  world  without  adding 
any  which  are  wicked  and  unnecessary.  A  sex 
war  would  be  an  unthinkable  disaster  to  the 
race,  yet  many  women  are  zealously  promoting 
the  idea.  Nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  antago- 
nism between  men  and  women.  The  future  wel- 
fare and  progress  of  each  depends  upon  the  co- 
operation and  help  of  the  other.  In  this  field 
lies  the  great  significance  of  the  profound  sen- 
tence of  Paul.  "  There  is  neither  male  nor  fe- 
male, for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  This 
means  that  there  may  be  differences  in  detail, 
differences  which  charm  and  not  repel,  essential 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  181 

and  deep-lying  diversities  in  that  profound  and 
unsearchable  thing  we  call  personality,  but  es- 
sential harmony  of  spirit;  equal  and  common 
rights  and  privileges  in  society,  a  common 
reaching  toward  the  goal  of  spiritual  perfection 
and  power.  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  to  be- 
lieve with  Tennyson  that  woman  should 

"  Set  herself  to  man. 
Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words: 
And   so   these   twain   upon   the   skirts   of   Time 
Sit  side  by  side,  full  summed  in  all  their  powers. 
Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be, 
Self  reverent  each  and  reverencing  each. 
Distinct  in  individualities. 
But  like  each,  even  as  those  who  love. 
.  .  .  thought  in  thought 

Purpose  in  purpose,  will  in  will  they  grow. 
The  single  pure  and  perfect  animal. 
The  two-celled  heart,  beating  with  one  full  stroke. 
Life!" 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  matter  of  supreme 
importance  to-day  is  along  these  great  spiritual 
lines.  The  question  of  the  ballot  may  now  be 
taken  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is 
hardly  in  the  field  of  argument.  It  is  inevita- 
ble. Women  will  be  given  this  privilege  whether 
they  desire  it  or  not.  It  is  in  the  line  of  the 
inescapable  evolutionary  progress  of  democ- 
racy. Women  can  afford  to  wait  for  it  with 
patience   and   dignity.     The   really   important 


182  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

and  serious  matter  is  whether  women  who  are 
in  search  of  civil  rights  are  to  be  led  into  by- 
paths of  hysteria  and  insanity,  in  regard  to  the 
whole  question  of  the  place  of  women  in  society. 
We  have  enough  hysterical  and  unbalanced  men 
in  the  field  of  politics  now,  without  adding  any 
women  to  the  number.  Women  will  have  the 
ballot,  they  will  have  political  power.  There  is 
danger  that  those  who  have  conducted  the  agi- 
tation for  these  privileges  shall  come  to  think 
that  agitation  is  the  chief  end  of  life.  They 
must  consider  how  women  may  use  their  influ- 
ence as  a  sane,  judicial,  temperate,  constructive 
force. 

Life  is  the  great  problem  in  a  democracy, 
and  not  simply  agitation  for  this  or  that. 
How  may  life  as  a  whole  be  built  up  and  con- 
served and  ennobled,  in  the  home,  in  the  school, 
along  the  line  of  industry  and  trade.  How 
shall  we  take  this  old  earth,  scarred  by  battle, 
marred  by  the  hatred  and  fury  of  men,  and 
make  the  tears  and  the  blood  bring  forth  in  our 
age,  a  harvest  of  beauty  and  peace?  These 
are  the  really  great  questions.  Let  me  insist 
again  that  the  great  ideals  of  humanity  can 
never  be  wrought  through  hostility  and  war  be- 
tween men  and  women.  War  is  never  justifi- 
able, except  as  a  basis  of  reconstruction  and 
growth.  We  do  not  need  it  between  the  sexes. 
Their  interests  are  common,  their  goal  is  one. 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  183 

Neither  can  do  without  the  other.  Let  them 
strike  hands  then,  in  mutual  understanding  and 
faith,  each  admitting  the  strength  of  the  other, 
acknowledging  frankly  the  fundamental  differ- 
ences, glorying  in  the  fundamental  likenesses 
and  unity.  Let  them  approach  together  this 
great  enterprise.  Let  them  build  together  the 
ultimate  democracy  in  which  there  shall  be  no 
more  war,  in  which  hatred  and  injustice  shall  no 
more  find  place,  which  shall  be  the  new  Eden, 
not  for  man,  not  for  woman,  but  for  each  and 
both.  For  this  task  woman  is  especially  en- 
dowed. Let  her  not  pervert  her  divinely  given 
powers,  but  let  her  use  them  generously,  nobly, 
sanely,  for  law  and  order  and  discipline  and 
righteousness.  So  shall  she  take  her  rightful 
place  in  the  state.  So  shall  she  build  with  man 
the  ideal  commonwealth,  and  the  glory  and  the 
honor  shall  be  hers. 


XV 

THE  CITY  OF  VISIONS 

And  he  showed  me  that  great  city,  the  holy  Jerusalem, 
descending  out  of  heaven  from  God.  Having  the  glory 
of  God.  And  her  light  was  like  unto  a  stone  m^ost 
precious,  even  like  a  jasper  stone,  clear  as  crystal. — 
Revelation  21 :  10. 

The  Bible  begins  with  a  great  poem  of  the 

creation.     It  traces  the  broad   stream  of  life 

back  to  its  far  off  beginning,  its  ultimate  source 

in  the  creative  energy  of  God.     Then  it  gives 

us   those  matchless    stories   of   the   patriarchs, 

individuals     whose     characters     loom     grandly 

upon    the    remote    horizons    of    history.     The 

stream  then  broadens  from  the  individual  to  the 

family,  from  the  family  to  the  tribe,  from  the 

tribe  to  the  nation,  but  it  is  still  a  provincial 

history.     It  is  the  story  of  God's  dealing  with 

one   nation.     Then   the   stream   narrows    once 

more   to    the    individual.     The    one    absorbing 

theme  of  the  New  Testament  is  the  personality 

of  the  one  man  Christ  Jesus.     In  him  the  soil 

of  human  history,  watered  by  blood  and  tears, 

brings   forth  its   consummate   flower.     But  we 
184 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  185 

find  that  even  he  is  not  the  final  term  in  the  as- 
cending series  of  human  progress.  The  Bible 
begins  anew  at  this  point.  Jesus  the  supreme 
personality  gives  his  life  that  a  new  cycle  of 
human  experience  may  begin.  He  is  the  "  new 
Adam,"  in  Paul's  expressive  phrase.  He  dies 
that  the  whole  human  race  may  have  a  new  life 
in  him.  The  New  Testament  relates  of  course 
only  the  beginning,  the  initial  stages  of  a  racial 
development  which  has  never  stayed  in  its  prog- 
ress from  the  days  of  the  apostles  to  our  own. 
The  New  Testament,  the  Bible  however,  ends  as 
it  should,  in  prophecy,  with  a  splendid  vision 
of  the  culmination  of  the  redemptive  processes 
which  were  initiated  by  the  life  of  Jesus.  It 
is  a  vision  of  life  glorified  and  transformed  but 
no  longer  individualistic.  The  apostle  does 
not  show  us  as  the  result  of  the  long  struggle 
upward  from  the  brute,  a  superman,  a  supreme 
character,  the  ultimate  product  of  evolution, 
a  God-like  being,  endowed  with  all  wisdom  and 
power.  He  shows  us  instead  a  glorified  city, 
a  divine  and  holy  society.  The  redemptive 
forces  of  life,  set  in  motion  by  the  sacrifice  of 
Jesus,  reach  their  goal  in  a  new  civilization,  in 
the  perfect  interplay  of  social  forces,  in  those 
mutual  relationships  of  human  life,  which  find 
their  highest  exemplification  in  the  city.  And 
so  the  great  apostle  of  love  sees  a  vision  of  a 
city,  radiant  as  a  jewel,  beautiful  beyond  de- 


186  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

scription,  coming  down  out  of  heaven,  originat- 
ing in  the  mind  of  God,  but  descending  upon 
earth,  fulfilling  in  the  earth  the  will  of  God  as 
it  is  fulfilled  in  heaven.  What  a  splendid  con- 
ception it  is !  Not  just  man  redeemed,  but  all 
that  man  has  wrought  into  the  city  redeemed. 
The  whole  city  for  which  it  stands,  refined  in 
the  fires  of  God's  love  and  discipline  until  it 
shines  like  a  jasper  stone  most  precious,  clear 
as  crystal.  Can  you  think  of  anything  more 
optimistic  and  inspiring?  We  say,  the  most 
hopeful  and  sanguine  of  us  say,  "  Perhaps  some- 
time, we  shall  make  an  impression,  through  our 
toil  and  our  faith,  by  God's  grace  upon  the 
city.  We  may  in  time,  or  our  children's  chil- 
dren may  sometime  be  able  to  make  it  a  little 
cleaner  morally,  a  little  less  cruel,  a  little  less 
dangerous,  a  little  less  evil."  But  the  inspired 
genius  of  the  apostle  does  not  halt  in  its  flight 
short  of  perfection.  He  sees  every  evil  elimi- 
nated, every  wrong  righted,  every  life  trans- 
formed. We  have  no  right  to  think  of  any 
lesser  consummation.  We  must  say,  "  We  are 
working  for  the  perfect  city,  the  city  of  ideals, 
of  visions,  of  dreams."  The  goal  before  us  is 
the  holy  city,  the  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down 
out  of  heaven.  And  some  day  the  dream  will 
come  true.  The  city  of  our  vision,  of  the 
prophet's  vision,  of  God's  vision,  will  come  true. 
It  will  shine  in  its  radiance  like  a  jewel  in  the 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  187 

diadem  of  the  king.  It  will  match  in  its  actual 
manifestation  of  beauty  and  power  that  great 
song  of  a  redeemed  humanity  which  brings  to  a 
close  the  great  literature  which  we  call  the 
Bible. 

How  may  we  realize  this  inspired  vision  of  the 
apostle?  By  more  visions  of  our  own:  By 
more  prayer:  By  closer  contact  with  the  di- 
vine sources  of  power.  I  have  pointed  out  be- 
fore, I  wish  to  emphasize  again  in  the  strongest 
way  possible  that  the  great  temptation,  the 
great  peril  of  the  city  is  materialism :  absorption 
in  the  physical  side  of  this  present  world.  The 
situation  at  this  time  is  a  strange  one.  There 
is  no  conflict  today  between  science  and  re- 
ligion, between  the  material  and  the  physical. 
We  have  reached  the  end  of  the  old  dualism, 
the  old  idea  of  two  mutually  exclusive  spheres. 
Religion  has  won  the  battle.  The  best  scien- 
tific thought  today  fully  admits  the  validity  of 
the  main  contentions  of  religion.  It  no  longer 
denies  the  existence  of  God.  It  recognizes  the 
fact  that  spiritual  phenomena  have  the  same 
scientific  standing  as  physical  phenomena. 
They  are  facts  to  be  investigated,  to  be  studied 
and  classified,  not  vagaries  and  hallucinations 
to  be  ignored.  But  the  victory  bids  fair  to  be 
a  barren  one,  because  of  the  supreme  indiffer- 
ence of  humanity  at  large.  Men  accept  this 
conclusion  with  only  the  mildest  manifestation 


188  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

of  interest.  "  So  science  has  concluded  that 
there  is  a  God?  Well,  what  of  it?  I  am  too 
busy  about  my  own  affairs  to  care  for  anything 
so  remote  as  that."  What  does  the  roaring 
traffic  of  the  street  care  for  God?  What  do 
the  great  factories,  belching  smoke,  the  hurry- 
ing trains,  the  ships  which  come  up  to  the 
wharves  with  the  salt  of  the  seven  seas  upon 
their  funnels,  what  do  they  care  for  God? 
What  does  the  great  world  of  men  and  women, 
bent  only  upon  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  care  for 
God?  The  battle  is  not  won  merely  because 
science  admits  that  the  great  creative  energy 
of  the  universe  is  not  blind  force,  but  a  life- 
giving  spirit.  We  shall  never  see  the  city  of 
God  coming  down  out  of  heaven  until  We  co- 
ordinate the  two  spheres  of  the  spiritual  and 
the  material.  In  the  past,  the  church  has  been 
as  blameworthy  as  the  world.  The  church  has 
insisted  that  the  two  spheres  were  entirely  at 
variance.  It  has  called  to  men  to  separate 
themselves  wholly  from  this  evil  world,  to  mor- 
tify the  flesh,  to  enter  within  the  holy  and  ex- 
clusive circumference  of  the  ecclesiastical 
sphere.  But  the  city  of  God  is  no  more  to  be  a 
cloister  exclusively  for  the  retreat  of  holy  men 
and  women,  than  it  is  to  be  exclusively  a  mart 
of  trade  without  a  heart.  There  can  be  no  city 
of  God  until  the  two  are  mingled,  until  trade  is 
made  holy  and  the  man  of  business  is  the  man 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  189 

of  visions,  until  the  church  is  made  practical 
and  ministers  to  all  the  needs  of  men.  I  can- 
not understand  why  these  false  distinctions 
should  so  long  persist  when  the  example  of  the 
Master  has  for  so  many  centuries  been  so 
clearly  before  us.  He  was  the  Word  made 
flesh.  He  was  the  unimaginable  love  and  glory 
of  God  entering  and  leaving  life  at  its  lowliest 
portals.  In  his  divine  life  there  was  never  any 
separation  of  the  two  spheres.  Jesus  began 
his  career  in  a  carpenter's  shop.  What  was 
the  difference,  do  you  think,  between  his  life 
during  those  long  years  of  labor,  and  the  life  of 
the  ordinary  carpenter's  apprentice?  It  was 
this :  The  ordinary  apprentice  says,  "  I  am 
bound  here  to  a  life  of  ceaseless  drudgery,  noth- 
ing but  hard  labor  and  poverty  is  in  store  for 
me.  There  is  no  God  in  the  heavens.  I  will 
eat  and  drink  and  take  what  pleasure  I  can  in 
life,  for  tomorrow  I  die."  But  the  mind  of  Je- 
sus, as  he  did  each  day's  task  faithfully  and 
well,  was  full  also  of  dreams  and  visions.  Ah! 
what  dreams  and  visions !  Sometimes  the  dim 
old  shop  was  filled  with  a  celestial  radiance  and 
he  saw  the  coasts  of  the  heavenly  country  shine 
beyond  the  thin  veil  which  separates  time  and 
eternity.  When  he  went  out  into  the  open  air, 
beneath  the  blue  Syrian  sky,  he  saw  everywhere 
in  the  lilies  of  the  field,  the  birds  of  the  air,  the 
growing  grain,  a  divine   significance  which  he 


190  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

applied  instantly  to  the  needs  of  human  life. 
And  finally  when  the  consciousness  of  a  redemp- 
tive mission  dawned  fully  upon  his  enraptured 
soul,  he  went  forth  from  his  carpenter's  shop  to 
reveal  the  glory  of  the  commonplace,  to  awaken 
in  the  souls  of  men  the  consciousness  of  a  divine 
origin  and  a  divine  destiny.  He  touched  the 
water  at  the  marriage  feast  and  it  glowed  to 
wine,  he  touched  the  eyes  of  the  blind  beggar 
and  the  glory  of  the  sunlight  broke  in  upon  the 
darkened  soul.  He  spoke  to  the  common 
woman  of  Samaria  and  revealed  to  her  one  of 
the  most  profound  spiritual  truths  which  ever 
fell  from  the  lips  of  a  teacher.  He  took  the 
men  of  Galilee,  toilers  at  the  oar,  business  men, 
tax  collectors,  and  made  them  apostles  and 
priests  of  a  new  spiritual  kingdom.  And  at 
last  how  did  he  reveal  the  supreme  heights  of 
his  redemptive  love  for  men?  Not  by  a  burst 
of  heavenly  splendor,  not  by  some  radiant 
transfiguration.  He  took  the  wood  of  the 
malefactors'  cross,  and  by  the  power  of  his 
spirit  he  fashioned  it  into  the  splendid  symbol 
of  a  redeemed  race. 

Jesus  thus  constantly  mingled  the  two 
spheres  of  the  material  and  the  spiritual  into 
one  sphere  of  a  holy  and  redeemed  experience 
of  life.  And  we  must  do  the  same.  It  is  the 
supreme  task  of  Christianity.  Not  to  take  men 
out  of  the  world.     Not  to  deny  the  physical 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  191 

life,  but  to  irradiate  and  transform  it.  We 
are  to  teach  the  men  of  the  city  that  they  are 
to  look  for  no  sudden  and  miraculous  transfor- 
mation of  the  city  from  misery  and  sordidness 
and  squalor  into  the  splendor  of  the  streets  of 
gold  and  the  gates  of  pearl.  We  are  to  teach 
men  that  they  must  work  out  its  redemption 
through  the  energy  of  their  redeemed  lives. 

"  Not  where  the  wheeling  systems  darken. 
And  our  benumbed  conceiving  soars, 
The  drift  of  pinions,  would  we  hearken. 
Beats  at  our  own  clay  shuttered  doors. 

"  The  angels  keep  their  ancient  places. 
Turn  but  a  stone,  and  start  a  wing, 
'Tis  ye,  'tis  your  estranged  faces. 
That  miss  the  many  splendored  thing! 

**  But  (when  so  sad  thou  canst  not  sadder) 
Cry ;  —  and  upon  thy  so  sore  loss 
Shall   shine  the  traffic  of  Jacob's  ladder 
Pitched  between  heaven  and  Charing  Cross. 

"  Yea,  in  the  night,  my  Soul,  my  daughter. 
Cry, —  clinging  Heaven  by  the  hands: 
And  lo,  Christ  walking  on  the  water 
Not  of  Genesareth,  but  Thames !  '* 

Some  day  the  poet  will  come  with  a  keener 
sense  of  the  beauty  of  the  common-place  than 
Wordsworth,  with  broader  sympathy  than  Bal- 
sac,  with  a  more  profound  understanding  of  life 


192  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

than  Shakespeare,  and  he  will  reveal  to  the  full 
the  splendor  beneath  the  city's  grime,  the  divine 
possibilities  which  beat  within  the  city's  heart. 

The  redemption  of  the  city  must  come  from 
the  impulsive  power  of  the  spirit  energizing  in 
all  the  activities  of  life.  It  is  exactly  like  the 
power  of  the  sun.  In  the  spring-time,  the  sun 
makes  every  seed  which  has  the  germinating 
principle  within  it  awaken  to  life  and  beauty. 
It  is  absolutely  impartial  in  its  service.  It 
calls  with  its  compelling  voice  to  the  seed  of  the 
smallest  flower  and  the  seed  of  the  mightiest 
tree.  But  once  above  ground  the  sun  does  not 
dictate  how  each  seed  shall  grow.  Every  seed 
developes  its  own  type  of  excellence,  of  beauty, 
of  usefulness.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the 
power  of  the  spirit  must  interpenetrate  the 
sphere  of  the  material.  It  does  not  dictate  to 
men  or  to  institutions,  but  it  must  be  the  im- 
pelling power  behind  them  all.  As  Paul  ex- 
presses it,  "  There  are  diversities  of  gifts  but 
the  same  spirit,  and  there  are  diversities  of  ad- 
ministration but  the  same  Lord,  and  there  are 
diversities  of  operation  but  the  same  God 
worketh  in  all  and  through  all."  These  words 
might  be  applied,  must  be  applied  to  the  prob- 
lem of  the  modern  city.  The  divine  Spirit  must 
be  the  guiding  principle  in  all  the  manifold  and 
divine  operations  of  the  city's  life. 

The  church  does  not  go  to  men  of  business 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  193 

and  say,  "  I  can  conduct  your  business  better 
and  more  profitably  than  you  can  yourself. 
Listen  to  my  dictation."  The  church  goes  to 
the  business  man  and  says,  "  You  must  recog- 
nize God  in  your  affairs.  You  are  not  living 
wholly  for  yourself.  You  are  not  making 
money  for  yourself  alone.  You  are  a  steward 
of  God.  You  cannot  leave  God  and  the  spirit 
out  of  the  reckoning,  for  you  are  in  the  grasp 
of  forces  mightier  than  your  own  personality, 
clever  and  strong  as  that  may  be.  You  may 
amass  wealth  greater  than  the  resources  of  em- 
pires, you  may  build  the  Babel  tower  of  your 
business  as  high  as  the  stars,  but  in  the  hour 
of  darkness  a  voice  will  speak,  calm,  stern,  dis- 
passionate, '  Thou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul 
shall  be  required  of  thee.'  You  must  not  con- 
duct your  business  without  the  heavenly  vision. 
You  must  conduct  it  righteously,  in  accordance 
with  God's  great  laws  and  with  consideration 
for  your  brother-men." 

That  is  the  meaning,  I  believe,  of  certain 
movements  in  our  largest  business  interests  to- 
day. Men  are  beginning  to  recognize  this 
truth.  The  heads  of  great  business  houses  are 
enunciating  the  principle  of  their  own  accord. 
They  are  beginning  to  realize  that  there  must 
be  spiritual  vision  as  well  as  business  insight  in 
the  conduct  of  affairs.  The  time  will  come 
when  every  man  will  respect  the  rights  of  every 


194  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

other  in  the  city,  and  that  will  mean  that  every 
evil  business  will  be  given  up,  because  all  evil 
reacts  upon  the  social  order;  and  no  man  can 
be  permitted  to  corrupt  the  people  of  the  com- 
munity for  his  private  gain.  Today  we  say  to 
a  man,  "  My  friend,  your  business  is  evil.  It 
takes  your  neighbor's  child  and  stunts  him,  de- 
prives him  of  education  and  development;  or, 
it  takes  your  neighbor's  child  and  makes  a  beast 
of  him,  deprives  him  of  reason,  and  destroys 
the  fair  promise  of  a  life  useful  to  the  com- 
munity. His  proud  mother's  heart  is  breaking 
and  his  father's  hoary  head  is  bowed  with 
shame."  He  replies,  "Well,  what  of  it.?  My 
business  is  my  own.  My  neighbor  must  take 
care  of  his  own  children.  I  deny  the  responsi- 
bility." And  the  city  allows  him  to  continue 
in  his  business.  Now  this  is  simple  lack  of  vi- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  city.  The  city  of  the 
future  will  accept  no  such  excuse.  It  will  not 
permit  the  rising  generation  to  be  defiled  and 
weakened  on  the  plea  of  business  expediency. 
All  private  actions  will  be  determined  by  pub- 
lic necessity  based  upon  the  principle  of  love, 
the  spiritual  vision. 

The  church  will  go  in  the  same  spirit  to  that 
great  institution  of  the  city,  the  school.  It  has 
no  desire  whatever  to  interfere  in  its  manage- 
ment. It  must  say,  however,  that  the  com- 
munity is  assuming  in  the  conduct  of  this  in- 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  195 

stitution  not  a  civic  function  alone,  but  a  spir- 
itual responsibility.  To  stand  in  the  place  of 
the  parent  and  the  home  in  the  life  of  the  grow- 
ing child,  to  direct  its  development,  this  is  a 
holy  occupation.  It  must  not  be  undertaken 
then  lightly,  but  soberly,  and  reverently  and 
with  a  full  appreciation  of  the  spiritual  nature 
of  the  task.  There  are  those  who  deplore  the 
tendency  to  special  and  elaborate  technical  and 
commercial  training  in  our  schools.  There  will 
be  no  danger  if  you  do  not  separate  the  spirit- 
ual and  the  practical  spheres,  if  you  make  your 
training  inspirational  at  the  same  time  it  is 
technical.  You  must  give  the  boys  and  girls 
who  are  working  with  facts  and  figures  the 
dream-stuff  of  the  poets  and  the  prophets  also. 
You  must  teach  them  to  see  visions  in  the  work- 
shop and  the  office.  The  function  of  the  school, 
whether  it  is  fitting  for  the  professions  or  for 
the  trades,  is  not  utilitarian  merely.  Its  ob- 
ject must  be  to  train  the  child's  imagination  as 
well  as  his  intellectual  faculties,  to  teach  him  to 
see  visions  as  well  as  to  do  sums  in  mathematics, 
to  fit  him  for  citizenship  in  the  heavenly  city, 
the  new  Jerusalem.  To  that  end  the  teachers 
of  our  schools  should  consider  themselves  called 
of  God  to  their  high  office. 

The  church  must  go  to  men  in  the  realm  of 
politics,  not  to  interfere  in  the  functions  of 
government.     Why   do    we   hear   so   often   the 


196  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

phrase  "  the  church  must  not  meddle  with  poli- 
tics "?  Are  politics  so  holy,  or  so  corrupt, 
that  they  do  not  come  within  the  vision  of  the 
church  ?  The  church  has  no  wish  to  "  meddle  " 
with  politics,  but  it  has  the  God-given  pro- 
phetic right  to  demand  that  all  government 
shall  be  conducted  righteously  and  with  spir- 
itual vision.  It  has  the  prophet's  inalienable 
right  to  denounce  misgovernment  and  corrup- 
tion in  the  city.  If  there  is  any  material  func- 
tion which  is  holy,  it  is  that  which  concerns  the 
government  of  a  great  city,  the  interests  of  all 
the  people.  The  church  must  say  to  those 
who  are  chosen  by  the  people,  "  Yours  is  a  sa- 
cred trust  and  we  shall  hold  you  strictly  to  the 
just  and  honorable  performance  of  it."  I  be- 
lieve that  the  time  will  come  when  the  highest 
type  of  American  manhood,  yes,  and  American 
womanhood,  will  count  it  an  honor  and  a  privi- 
lege to  serve  the  city  in  accordance  with  the  lof- 
tiest ideals  of  righteousness  and  love. 

In  the  new  city  of  visions  men  will  take  time 
to  live;  earnestly  and  rationally  and  right- 
eously. They  will  take  time  to  acquaint  them- 
selves with  the  treasures  of  history  and  litera- 
ture and  art.  They  will  take  time  to  think,  to 
pray  and  to  worship  God  decently  and  in  order. 
What  is  all  this  haste  of  the  modern  world 
about  .^  The  nobler  race  of  the  future  will  look 
back  with  amazement  and  disgust  upon  a  period 


AND  CIVIC  PRIDE  197 

in  which  the  world  was  so  feverishly  busy,  so 
absorbed  in  a  headlong  pursuit  of  money  and 
pleasure  that  it  had  no  time  for  good  manners, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  interests  of  the  soul  and 
the  worship  of  Almighty  God.  We  must  give 
up  this  insane  worship  of  the  material  or  we  die. 
We  must  have  the  heavenly  vision  or  we  perish 
utterly.  Human  experience  is  worth  some- 
thing. On  the  pages  of  history,  the  Spirit  has 
written  large: 

"  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out." 

What  is  the  real  strength  of  the  great  Chris- 
tian nations  today.?  Is  it  in  their  armaments.? 
That  is  their  fatal  weakness.  Is  it  their  world- 
wide commerce,  is  it  the  long  list  of  kings  and 
emperors  who  are  forgotten  dust?  No.  It  is 
the  interpenetration  of  the  lives  of  the  people 
by  the  Spirit.  It  is  in  their  memory  of  those 
great  souls  whose  lives  have  been  the  flowering 
of  the  Spirit.  Luther,  Wickliffe,  Cromwell, 
Milton,  Goethe,  Shakespeare.  It  is  in  the  in- 
fluence of  the  thousands  of  unsung  lives  of  ob- 
scure preachers  and  teachers  who  in  schools 
and  parish  churches  have  kept  alive  the  flame 
of  faith  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

The  city  of  visions  will  come.  God  through 
his  poets  and  dreamers  never  prophesies  in  vain. 
The  difficulties  which  seem  insuperable  will  yield 
to  the  faith  and  the  valor  of  God's  chosen  peo- 


198  CIVIC  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

pie.  Shining  like  a  jewel,  costly  and  beautiful 
beyond  compare,  its  towers  and  battlements  will 
stand  against  the  sunrise  of  the  future.  The 
city  of  peace  and  holiness  and  love,  of  beauty 
and  honor  and  faith,  of  visions  and  dreams. 
The  city  in  which  no  one  shall  be  afraid,  in 
which  all  shall  have  an  equal  opportunity,  in 
which  innocence  and  helplessness  shall  be  a  sa- 
cred trust,  and  the  weakest  shall  be  watched 
over  with  the  tenderest  care.     In  which 

*'  No  one  shall  work  for  money, 
And  no  one  shall  work  for  fame." 

In  which  the  burdens  of  each  shall  be  shared  by 
all.  In  which  God  shall  be  worshipped  in  Spirit 
and  in  truth,  and  Jesus  shall  be  crowned  Lord 
of  all. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THELAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FlH'oF  25  CENTS 

THIS   BOOK  °N   THE  DATE  FOURTH 

^r;'ro''TO      ™ol°or;HE    SEVENTH    O.V 
OVERDUE. 


■"^ 


LD  21-100m-7,'33 


YB  08751 


/ 


I- 


304023 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


j  i 


l!!l!! 


